UK Manslaughter Trial Links Deaths to Legionella Outbreak

Council admits it failed to protect public

Published on February 9, 2005

On the first day of the Legionnaires' Disease trial the jury have been told Barrow Borough Council has admitted failing to protect the public from the bug. The authority pleaded guilty in a pre-trial review last week to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Both Barrow council and its design services manager Gillian Beckingham deny seven charges of manslaughter. Beckingham also denies the same health and safety charge the authority has admitted. Seven people died and of the 494 people who had acute respiratory infection between August 5 and 22, 2002, 220 were treated as having Legionnaires'. The case continues.

Reproduced by kind permission of the North-West Evening Mail, Barrow-in-Furness

The town hall clerk charged with manslaughter of seven

Published on February 8, 2005

The trial of a Cumbrian town hall official charged with the manslaughter of seven people following an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease will go-ahead today Gillian Beckingham, a design services manager with Barrow Borough Council in Cumbria, is charged with the unlawful killing of six women and a man in August 2002. Barrow Borough Council faces the same charges at Preston Crown Court. More than two years after the outbreak of the disease which left seven people dead and affected around 200 others, the case against Beckingham and the council will be outlined by the prosecution. The trial follows one of Britain’s worst outbreaks of Legionnaire’s disease, which spread from an air conditioning unit at the council-run Forum 28 arts centre in Barrow in August 2002. Beckingham and Barrow Borough Council deny the unlawful killing of seven people. This is the first time a local authority, and its employee, has been charged with corporate manslaughter.

Originally Published in the UK Newspaper "News and Star"on 02/08/200

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