R105 Response Response Pending

Reverse burden for organisational failure to prevent harm

Recommendation

Consideration should be given to a different approach to the prosecution of organisations for failing to prevent deliberate harm being caused by their employees, such as by applying a reverse burden to the offence. This would require any organisation, such as an HSCT, to prove that, where deliberate harm had been caused to a service user by any individual employed by that organisation, that it had taken all reasonable and practicable steps to prevent such deliberate harm to service users, or alternatively, that that it was not practicable or not reasonably practicable to do more than was in fact done.

Published Evidence Summary
The following publicly available evidence relates to this recommendation:
No formal government response has been recorded for this recommendation. No independent verification has been carried out.
Sources
Based on tracking data in the inquiry database.
How was this evidence gathered?
Evidence searched by baseline-data-v1 on 12 Sep 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
Jurisdiction
Northern Ireland
Response
Response Pending

No government response recorded.

Source
Report Muckamore Abbey Hospital Inquiry Report 18 Jun 2026
Responsible Bodies
Department of Health NI Primary
Recommendation age 0.2 yrs
Last formal update No formal updates