Do corporates get away with murder?

In the UK unionists and victims of the Hatfield rail disaster are dismayed the culpability of engineering firm Balfour Beatty (BB) has been limited to a £10m pound fine. On October 17 2000 a King's Cross to Leeds train came off the tracks at 115mph after a rail disintegrated, killing four people and injuring 102.

While Trade Union Council general secretary Brendan Barber welcomed the severity of the fine, he joined others in calling for tougher corporate manslaughter laws.

"The families of those killed will still feel cheated that no senior executives are to face punishment as a result of their safety crimes. The government urgently needs to address [the fact] that all the courts can do is to fine a company. What is necessary is both a new offence of corporate killing, with a wider range of penalties available, and new legal duties that make directors directly responsible for the health and safety of their staff and customers."

The Old Bailey judge put Balfour Beatty's failure at the "top of the scale", saying he regarded "Balfour Beatty as one of the worse examples of industrial negligence in a high-risk industry I have seen". While Justice MacKay was highly critical of the company, he cast out corporate manslaughter charges bought against Balfour Beatty, most likely due to the difficulty in securing convictions under present legislation.

Perhaps it says a lot about the company that BB did not admit breaching health and safety rules until the corporate manslaughter charges were dropped.

I would be interested to look into whether New Zealand has a 'corporate manslaughter' charge on its statute books and if so, what kind of burden of proof is required. New Zealand could come up with its own shady looking lineup of irresponsible corporates. As a couple of examples, the former Tranzrail and forestry company Juken Nissho have long records of heath and safety convictions - including incidents leading to deaths on the job.

Back to the BB case, the judge also voiced his own criticisms of the way the UK railways were privatised.
"The elimination of one of the indefensible features of the 1996 privatisation is now gone - the separation of the track from its maintenance - is now gone. Perhaps that is one good thing resulting from this disastrous affair."

In 2002 Tranzrail contracted out track maintenance to Transfield, who by most accounts maintained a better relationship with unions and did a better job than the privately owned Tranzrail ever did (that would not be hard). Following the renationalisation of the rail track in September 2004, the Government set up a new Crown agency to oversee the ownership and maintenance of the rail infrastructure on its behalf - OnTrack.

Given the clear warning the Balfour Beatty case represents, it is probably a good thing OnTrack decided to bring the maintenance work back in house, following a tendering process it is obliged to carry out under the agreement it made with Toll Holdings. Best of all, OnTrack purchased part of the present contractor, allowing staff who maintain the rails to transfer to OnTrack while maintaining their present terms and conditions of employment.

The Guardian - Hatfield victims and unions call for new corporate killing law
The Independent - Balfour Beatty fined £10m for Hatfield disaster

Categories: UK, New Zealand, Corporations, Law, Politics, Rail, Union, Safety

UK police shoot dead innocent civilian in the name of the 'war on terror'

UK Police have admitted that man they shot dead in Stockwell tube station yesterday was not connected to the attempted bombings of London on July 21.

In other words - he was an innocent civilian.

This wasn't just a shooting - this was a summary execution, as NRT points out.
"They pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him" - Witness Mark Whitby

This amply demonstrates the reason why shooting people dead on the 'suspicion' of being involved in a terrorist activities is a foolish and dangerous precedent.

I simply do not buy the argument that the only way to stop a suspected bomber in a tube station is to ensure he/she dies by shooting them 5 times. Incapacitating/injuring someone may be justified in some circumstances, but death should only be the absolute last resort, and only when a threat is established as being genuine. In this case it is pretty clear the evidence of a threat was circumstantial at best.

While one passenger may have reported the man wearing a belt with wires coming out of it - the man was only guilty of being an electrician.

And last I checked, running away from plain clothes armed men was not a capital offence, even if they did attempt to identify themselves. While we may hear calls for sympathy for the officer who was forced to make a 'split second' decision, we should also have some sympathy for an civilian who was understandably freaked.

A tube station is a very controlled and predictable environment - there are few places for a person to go. The first thing I would have done in this situation if I was the police would have been to clear the station of any trains - and given the word, this can happen very quickly.

Given that most tubes have CCTV and the train was in the station at the time there is a high chance there will be video evidence of the execution.

Chefen from Sir Humphreys attempts to justify the police action on the basis of a cruel utilitarian logic.
"When it comes to mass murder, the numbers say take a hardline because you'll save more people that way. Tough, but such is life."

In a sense Chefen is arguing that innocent civilians should die on account of the slightest chance it may save others - and this is only a short step from celebrating them as martyrs in the war against terror. In doing so, we would only be adopting the justifications of the terrorists, as well as providing Mr Bin Laden rhetorical means to recruit more martyrs for 'his side'.

And if you want to justify actions on the cold calculation of numbers, Iraqis may also see the logic in taking a 'hard line' against the UK, given the mass murder of 39,000 Iraqi civilians since the American/UK invasion.

Worst of all, Chefen erroneously attributes the guilt for terrorism to racial groups.
"I'm sure all those out there who are expert in the deployment of root-causes arguments can word it much better than "Sorry missus, but your son was running away from armed police towards a tube station and we had four terrorist attacks yesterday and we couldn't take the chance he was going to murder a few dozen commuters just for jollies. I can't wait for the crowd who plead for understanding of why certain populaces have brought terrorism on themselves to try and wiggle this one around 180 degrees."

And 'bought it on themselves' sounds a lot like how the Nazi's attempt to justify the infamous persecution of another racial and other groups - the holocaust.

I was talking to someone last night who compared the Stockwell incident to the bus bombers in Israel. But this example really crystallizes the point - the vast majority of people do not want to live in a society where the police and the armed forces are permitted to kill on sight those who are suspected of a crime.

Perhaps a reason why right wing 'liberals' rail against the 'Nanny State', a state that aims to care for and value the lives of its citizens is that such misnamed 'liberals' really want another type of state altogether - an oppressive state, governed by fear, where the state has unlimited license for indiscriminate violence and persecution. Mostly in the name of defending gross property and income inequalities from the democratic majority.

Bush and Blair harp on about 'defending our values' yet pass draconian anti-terror legislation that takes away the values worth defending, such as the right to a fair trial and the assurance no free person will be imprisoned without charge.

When the terrorists are caught and convicted I don't want them to be executed or put in a jail cell 'with the key thrown away' - that's too easy. Following an open and public court process I would like to see prison, along with an involved and challenging restorative justice process that will allow families of victims the chance to force the terrorists to face the human costs of their actions.

The best weapon we have in the 'war on terror' is the maintenance of our own humanity and the highest level of respect for human life - this is one thing the terrorists can never have.

Categories: London, Politics, Shooting, Police, Bombings

PS: I do think it would be unfortunate if the good work of the UK police in the aftermath of the July 7th bombings was overshadowed by the latest incident. While they were unable to stop the bombs, they were on the case quickly with some good leads, information they shared with the public. I have a suspicion we will find the 'police' involved in the shooting were not ordinary bobbies.

Paul Neazor QC: Rainbow Warrior and Zaoui

Good documentary on Sunday about the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Unfortunately I missed about 15 minutes of it because the video recorder stuffed up. Does anyone know if Sunday will be repeated later in the week? (and I don't mean another day off!)

Alain Mafart and Dominque Prieur were convicted of manslaughter for their part in the bombing of the Greenpeace ship.

I was very interested to learn it was Paul Neazor, as Solicitor General, who reduced the charges against the pair from murder to manslaughter. According to the Police account of 'Operation Wharf' he did so because "with the evidence available it could not be established that Mafart and Prieur were personally responsible for the placing of the explosive devices on the Rainbow Warrior, no that they intended anyone should be killed or injured."

Well I would have thought the use of any bomb implies an intention to injure, unless its a paint bomb or a marshmallow surprise.

The same Paul Neazor Q.C is now the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, charged with the review of the 'Security Risk Certificate' issued to Mr Ahmed Zaoui. Many of the allegations against Zaoui are thought to originate from a smear campaign orchestrated by Algerian security services, agencies who are known to have close links with French security services. As Mr Zaoui says "France has a good big link with the military regime. They are involved with everything in Algeria."

Initially, the French government denied all knowledge of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. But as evidence of their involvement became overwhelming, French Prime Minister Fabius came clean. "Agents of the DGSE (Secret Service) sank this boat. They acted on orders." The French minister of defense resigned.

It would be fascinating to know how the Rainbow Warrior episode formed Neazor's views/attitude towards French intelligence agencies, as this could have quite a bearing on the Zaoui case. As the French and Algerian governments applied "immense pressure" on Switzerland to deport Zaoui to the African nation of Burkina Faso, they are likely to have 'influenced' the views of our own SIS.

Unfortunately, we are unlikely to know how much credence Neazor gives to the self-interested bleatings of French intelligence agencies.

Given that the last Inspector General Laurie Greig was forced to resign after he uttered the word 'outski' to the news media, comments interpreted as bias on his part, the new IG is not likely to reveal the personal views that influence how he exercises his discretion. But as David Small argues, this only demonstrates the fundamental problems with the office itself.

"Solicitor-General at the time of the 1985 “Rainbow Warrior” bombing, the new I-G reveals very little about himself. It appears that almost everybody who has had close dealings with the former Solicitor-General vouches for his integrity. However, the same was said about Laurie Greig when he took up the position. While the issue of "apparent bias" brought down Greig, any lack of “apparent bias” does not address the fundamental problems with the office itself.

PS: Being 9 years old at the time of the Rainbow Warrior bombing I remember thinking Ma-fart was a funny name :)