Lawford Kidd's Blog

Seasons greetings from all at Lawford Kidd. If you have any concerns or require legal advice, please don’t hesitate to contact us throughout the festive period.

We hope you enjoy the festive period and wish you the best for the New Year.

Labour Party MSP Richard Baker (North East Scotland region) has called for changes to the existing laws governing corporate homicide, saying they are "not able to cope with modern times and, in particular, modern business and other relationships". In Scotland, there are on average 20 workplace fatalities per year, and in 2012/13 22 people died.

The MSP is now consulting on a proposed Culpable Homicide (Scotland) Bill to this effect, although it is unlikely it will materialise before to 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections.

Drunk pedestrians can be a major cause of traffic accidents, according to new research by price comparison website Confused.com.

The research shows that over 6,000 ‘drunk’ pedestrians have been injured on UK roads since 20111, and many of these ‘drunk walking’ accidents are happening over the Christmas period.

Drunk pedestrians are most at risk of injury on UK roads between the times of 22:00-23:59, perhaps as a result of a long night of drinking. Men are apparently the most likely to drink-walk, and account for more than three quarters (79%) of all drunk pedestrian road incidents.

A newly-published survey which was conducted jointly by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) and the Construction Dust Partnership (CDP), which aimed to discover how well issues with on-site dust risks are controlled and perceived, has shown that workers feel the issue of hazardous dust must be highlighted more in their workplace.

The results of the joint survey - which questioned more than 600 workers from throughout the construction industry - show that 44 per cent of workers currently feel that the industry considers the control of construction dust of "very little" priority. By contrast, just 12.5 per cent thought it was considered "a priority health issue".

The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland has been fined £100,000 following the death of a three-year-old boy at the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston in June 2008, reports the BBC.

Ben Craggs had been attending the show with his parents when he apparently grabbed hold of a rope between two bollards in one of the car parks at the showground. One of the bollards, which weighed 148kg, toppled over on top of him, causing severe head injuries. Ben was taken to hospital, but later died of his injuries.

A jury at Edinburgh Sheriff Court found that the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, which had organised the Highland Show, was guilty of failing to ensure that the bollards were “provided and maintained in a condition and connected in a manner which did not present a risk of overturning,” reports the BBC.