LRD guides and handbook October 2024

Health and Safety Law 2024

Magistrates’ courts can impose unlimited fines for health and safety offences committed on or after 12 March 2015. Courts can hand down prison sentences of up to six months (if the case is heard in the magistrates’ courts), or two years (if the case is heard in the Crown Court), for most health and safety offences. Judges can impose fines which consume or exceed company profits, even in cases where an employer has not been found to have deliberately cut corners to make a profit (R v FJ Chalcroft Construction Ltd [2008] EWCA Crim 770).