By Paul Marinko Barrow-in-Furness BC has been told it got off lightly for its part in Britain’s worst outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease because it is a public body. In the corporate manslaughter case which this week saw the council’s head of design services Gillian Beckingham cleared of causing the death of seven people, Mr Justice Stanley Burnton said he would have fined Barrow more than £1m if it had been a company and the council tax payers didn't have to foot the bill. In a judgement which could prove highly significant for any councils facing corporate manslaughter charges in the future, the judge fined the authority £125,000 after it admitted breaching health and safety laws and ordered it to pay £90,000 costs. He said Barrow was ‘one of the most deprived communities in the country’ and the people who would suffer would be those in need of council services. Addressing Ms Beckingham, 48, who was acquitted of seven counts of manslaughter but convicted of a breach of health and safety law, he said: ‘Your failings were repeated and serious, which led to multiple deaths and very serious suffering. ‘If you were a lady of wealth I should not hesitate but to impose a greater penalty than I propose to do.’ She had denied the seven counts but was fined £15,000 after failing to ensure the air conditioning unit at a council-run art centre was properly maintained. The outbreak of the disease in 2002, which is believed to have infected more than 170 people, was traced to the unit. Turning to the council the judge told Preston Crown Court: ‘If Barrow had been a commercial organisation with a multi-million pound turnover I should not have hesitated to impose a fine exceeding £1m.’ He said Ms Beckingham’s failings should be viewed in the context of the council's general disregard to health and safety. She had told the court she had received no health and safety training. The council said it accepted the judgement of the re-trial ‘unreservedly’ and Ms Beckingham – who is currently on long-term sick leave – would be given ‘some time to recover’ before the council ‘made formal contact with her’. Barrow became the first public body to be charged with corporate manslaughter after the outbreak, but was cleared at the first trial last year and the jury failed to reach a verdict on Ms Beckingham. Concerns over the ability to convict organisations rather than individuals for corporate manslaughter has led the Government to introduce a new Bill in parliament. Current law does not allow corporations to be tried for corporate manslaughter unless a person high enough in the managerial chain can be identified as the perpetrator of the transgression. Nick Dobson, head of local government at law firm Pinsent Masons, said the judgement did not make strict precedent law but may be cited in future cases. ‘There is a sort of logic to the public authority argument,’ he said. ‘Why should the taxpayer be hit?’ p.marinko@hgluk.com