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Police investigating the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are considering corporate and gross negligent manslaughter charges – raising, for me, questions about why government officials are never charged when a benefit claimant dies after being wrongly deprived of payments.
The BBC tells us:
“The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said the investigation was currently focused on eight suspects, with five interviews conducted under caution.
“It said there were now 53 persons of interest, most of whom were likely to be raised to suspect status at a later stage in the probe.
“The NPCC said the investigation remains focussed on offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice, but it was also considering charges of corporate manslaughter. Companies, rather than individuals, face such charges.”
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I spent years trying to get manslaughter charges raised against the Department for Work and Pensions over the deaths of disabled people who had been denied benefit – to no avail.
This revelation helps explain the reason: the law has been manipulated to ensure that governments cannot be held responsible for deaths in such a way – or at least to make it extremely difficult.
Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, only “corporations” and some Crown bodies can be prosecuted. But crucially:
- Government departments themselves are not “corporations” in law.
- Ministers and civil servants acting as “the Crown” are protected by Crown immunity unless explicitly named in an Act as prosecutable.
- The 2007 Act does extend liability to some Crown bodies (like the prison service), but it explicitly excludes central government departments.
That is the loophole that protects the DWP, despite the reported deaths of more than 100,000 benefit claimants after deprivation of payments between 2011 and 2019 alone.
Even when a death is clearly connected to policy decisions or maladministration, the law is structured so that the institution cannot be put in the dock.
And because the offence applies to the organisation and not individuals, no minister or civil servant can be charged with it either.
This is why the Post Office, as a corporation, can face this charge – but the DWP cannot.
Many legal academics argue that the Corporate Manslaughter Act should be extended to cover central government departments.
It was a political decision not to include them.
So when a department like the DWP implements policies that lead to deaths, the law offers no criminal route for accountability.
Ministers claimed that it would “paralyse policymaking”, but in reality it protects the government from accountability when its decisions kill people.
The Horizon scandal may create pressure to revisit this, because the parallels are now impossible to ignore.
This is a structural political choice – not a legal inevitability. Would you like to help campaign for change?
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Post Office may be responsible for Horizon scandal deaths. Why is it never the government?
Share this post:
Police investigating the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are considering corporate and gross negligent manslaughter charges – raising, for me, questions about why government officials are never charged when a benefit claimant dies after being wrongly deprived of payments.
The BBC tells us:
“The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said the investigation was currently focused on eight suspects, with five interviews conducted under caution.
“It said there were now 53 persons of interest, most of whom were likely to be raised to suspect status at a later stage in the probe.
“The NPCC said the investigation remains focussed on offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice, but it was also considering charges of corporate manslaughter. Companies, rather than individuals, face such charges.”
I spent years trying to get manslaughter charges raised against the Department for Work and Pensions over the deaths of disabled people who had been denied benefit – to no avail.
This revelation helps explain the reason: the law has been manipulated to ensure that governments cannot be held responsible for deaths in such a way – or at least to make it extremely difficult.
Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, only “corporations” and some Crown bodies can be prosecuted. But crucially:
That is the loophole that protects the DWP, despite the reported deaths of more than 100,000 benefit claimants after deprivation of payments between 2011 and 2019 alone.
Even when a death is clearly connected to policy decisions or maladministration, the law is structured so that the institution cannot be put in the dock.
And because the offence applies to the organisation and not individuals, no minister or civil servant can be charged with it either.
This is why the Post Office, as a corporation, can face this charge – but the DWP cannot.
Many legal academics argue that the Corporate Manslaughter Act should be extended to cover central government departments.
It was a political decision not to include them.
So when a department like the DWP implements policies that lead to deaths, the law offers no criminal route for accountability.
Ministers claimed that it would “paralyse policymaking”, but in reality it protects the government from accountability when its decisions kill people.
The Horizon scandal may create pressure to revisit this, because the parallels are now impossible to ignore.
This is a structural political choice – not a legal inevitability. Would you like to help campaign for change?
Share this post:
Like this:
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