Since the new Health and Safety Sentencing Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) were implemented in February 2016, a series of headline-making fines have been handed out by the Health and Safety Executive (the “HSE”).

Balfour Beatty received one of the first major fines under the Guidelines, forfeiting £2.6 million for a failure to risk assess events leading to the death of a sub-contractor in 2010. More recently Merlin Entertainments was fined £5 million for the failure to implement adequate health and safety controls leading to the crash of the Smiler ride at its Alton Towers theme park.