Bar staff will have breathed a sigh of relief at the acquittal of two of their colleagues by direction of the trial judge yesterday. This followed hours of legal argument about whether there was a “chain of causation” linking the death of Graham Parish directly to the actions of the bar staff who had served him a large amount of alcohol.
The judge found that, while there was enough evidence of “gross negligence” by the men to be brought to the jury, the fact that Parish had taken the decision to consume the alcohol broke the “chain of causation” linking the barmen’s actions to his death.
This was the first time bar staff had been charged with manslaughter arising out of serving excessive alcohol. The charge came under the common law heading of “involuntary manslaughter”, where the accused does not intend to harm the victim, but acted in such a negligent way it was foreseeable that harm would ensue.
Source: Carol Coulter, The Irish Times, 13/05/2011
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