A lesser offence of killing by gross carelessness, where there is a risk of death or serious injury and the person’s conduct falls far below what could be expected, will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.A third offence, killing when the intention was to cause only minor injury, will apply when death was caused by an unforeseen event and will carry a maximum sentence of between five and ten years.Announcing the package of proposals, Mr Straw said he had been “scandalised” by the lack of prosecutions in the wake of a series of recent disasters.He published a consultation document which cited the Zeebrugge ferry disaster in 1987, the King’s Cross fire of 1987 and the Clapham and Southall rail crashes of 1988 and 1997, as examples of where “the failures to successfully prosecute have led to an apparent perception among the public that the law dealing with corporate manslaughter is inadequate”.He said: “I have been scandalised like everybody else by the fact that corporations or their directors had very little penalty for some very reckless and negligent things that have occurred.”The Government wants corporate killing to cover all employing organisations, including schools, hospital trusts, charities and sole-trader businesses, such as self-employed gas fitters. The Law Commission, which examined the law on involuntary manslaughter in 1996, suggested that a corporate killing offence should only apply to corporations.But the Government’s consultation paper suggested that crown immunity should apply to the corporate killing offence, meaning that the Ministry of Defence, the Prison Service and the emergency services would all be exempt fromprosecution.The Labour MP Andrew Dismore, whose own Bill proposing the creation of a charge of corporate homicide has already made one appearance before the Commons, welcomed the proposals as a “very good start”. Mr Dismore, who worked as a lawyer on the aftermath of the King’s Cross fire disaster, wants chief executives and chairmen to face criminal prosecution for their companies’ failings. He said: “My response to the document is that we may need to be tougher on company directors but it is a very important step forward. Directors should not face charges in every case but in the worst cases it would be appropriate and it is an argument I will be putting forward.”Ruth Lea, the head of policy at the Institute of Directors, said there was an acceptance that the law needed to be tightened.

She said: “It is not in business’s interest to be seen to behave recklessly, and to be getting away with it.”. Elizabeth Taylor has confessed that friends initially tried to dissuade her from getting involved in AIDS issues. Elizabeth Taylor has confessed that friends initially tried to dissuade her from getting involved in AIDS issues.
“When I first began getting involved people said I was crazy,” the newly ennobled Dame Elizabeth said at a government reception in her honor Tuesday night. “People said they did not want to become involved in it – they said it was distasteful.”Taylor, who has been raising funds and campaigning on behalf of AIDS patients for almost 16 years, said she also received death threats initially.”Then it was seen as a disease which affected mainly homosexuals,” Taylor said “People said they had brought it upon themselves But AIDS knows no color, no race, it has no price tag. We are all vulnerable to AIDS.”Last week, Taylor was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire – the female equivalent of a knight – by the Queen for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.The screen diva has been credited with raising more than £75m for AIDS research. She has also raised £6m through her own Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation.Britain’s Health Secretary Alan Milburn, who hosted the reception, called Taylor “an inspiration to us all.”"Your work has made a difference to thousands of people whose lives have been blighted by AIDS,” Milburn told the star.Taylor, who was born in London in 1932, will be honored again Wednesday night when she is due to receive a British Film Institute fellowship, a lifetime achievement award..

Bob Ayling resigned as chairman of the Dome last night while the Government moved to distance itself from the deepening crisis surrounding the millennium attraction. Bob Ayling resigned as chairman of the Dome last night while the Government moved to distance itself from the deepening crisis surrounding the millennium attraction.
The Dome’s board agreed to the Millennium Commission’s demand for Mr Ayling’s resignation as a “non-negotiable” condition of a £29m rescue package.As criticism mounted during the day from senior Labour backbenchers, opposition MPs and church leaders, a Downing Street spokesman suggested the Government bore no responsibility “It’s not the Government’s job to run a visitor attraction. These are management decisions taken by NMEC and the Millennium Commission,” he said.The 11-strong board of the New Millennium Experience Company, the Dome’s operators, considered who should replace Mr Ayling, who was also last month sacked as chief executive of British Airways. Internal favourites were Sam Chisholm, NMEC’s deputy chairman and former BSkyB managing director, and Michael Grade, the former Channel 4 boss and chairman of the Dome’s creative review group.Mr Ayling was forced out after NMEC cut its visitor target to 7 million from an original 12 million because of poorer-than-expected ticket sales. At the same time, it received £29m in lottery money to top up the £110m already lent to it, taking its cost to nearly £850m.Nearly 50 Labour MPs, including the former ministers Peter Kilfoyle, Doug Henderson, Tony Banks and Frank Field, tabled a Commons motion registering their “deep alarm” and demanding that no more public cash be spent.Mike O’Connor, the commission’s director and accounting officer, told commissioners on Monday that in strict financial terms, the extra £29m was not “good value for money.”. There were a few wry smiles at the Royal Horticultural Society when Leyhill Open Prison announced its garden design for the Chelsea Flower Show would be entitled “Time – The Healer”. There were a few wry smiles at the Royal Horticultural Society when Leyhill Open Prison announced its garden design for the Chelsea Flower Show would be entitled “Time – The Healer”.
But the garden, bedecked with wild flowers and woodland plants taking over the derelict ground around a disused mine, complete with rotting timbers, flaking signs and an old-time style, has been awarded an RHS gold medal by the judges, the first the prison has won at Chelsea.