Making a killing

Michael Caplan's comment (see [2000] Gazette, 13 July, 14) on the government's manslaughter proposals, which the TUC welcomes, was astoundingly self-interested.

The argument which most beggared belief was his contention that prosecuting a two-partner rm of solicitors for a case where just one employee died would undermine the importance of a case where many were killed.

Is he perhaps suggesting that people responsible for 'only' one death should perhaps have to face merely the magistrates, rather than undermine the 'more serious' cases heard in the Old Bailey? Perhaps a rst offence should be dealt with by a police caution, or a bobby-led trip to the cash machine for an on-the-spot ne?The distinction he draws between small and large rms is one which the government's proposals are in fact designed to address.

Small rms and partnerships like law rms are already open to manslaughter prosecutions - indeed all the (few) people so far convicted of work-related manslaughters have been individual owners of rms.It's the people who run large rms who have so far managed to use the bureaucracy of their huge institutions to hide behind the mens rea principle, and that's the main target of the new proposals.

But to suggest that law rms should be exempt is simply breath-taking.And just one more thing that puzzles me about Mr Caplan's plea for immunity, How many law rms kill their employees anyway? Should his employees start wondering which one of them will be rst to go?

Owen Tudor, TUC legal services ofcer, London