In 1968, the Tredegar Estate made an agreement with Mrs. Evans, aged 76, whereby Mrs. Evans was allowed to live in a cottage rent and rates free for life, the agreement calling her interest a tenancy at will. Mrs. Evans's husband had worked for the Tredegar Estate all his life and Mr. and Mrs. Evans had always occupied the cottage rent and rates free. In 1965, Mr. Evans had died and the object of the agreement clearly was to provide a home for the remaining years of Mrs. Evans's life. Some two years later, the Tredegar Estate conveyed the cottage, in fee simple, to Mr. and Mrs. Binions, the conveyance being expressly subject to the 1968 agreement in Mrs. Evans's favour. Indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Binions paid a lower price for the cottage because of the agreement. In 1971, Mr. and Mrs. Binions gave notice to quit to Mrs. Evans, then aged 79, and subsequently issued a plaint for possession in the Newport (Mon.) County Court. Not surprisingly, the action for possession failed in both the county court and the Court of Appeal.

I. Introduction

The anomaly of including consumer hire agreements within the purview of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is more apparent than real. Although contracts of hire do not generally involve the provision of credit, they frequently afford a method of long-term disposition akin to such deferred-purchasing devices as hire-purchase and conditional sale. Indeed, one of the decisions which featured most prominently in the Crowther Committee's discussion of this form of surrogate credit involved a hirer who had failed to realise that the contract under which he held the chattel (a caravan) was one which precluded any acquisition of title by him. The abuse to which this type of transaction was subject clearly justified an extension of the Act to certain forms of consumer hiring. This extension was consonant with the policy, advocated by Crowther, of regulating transactions according to their function rather than their form.

The Law Commission’s proposal for an offence of “corporate killing” (modelled on the common law crimeof gross negligence manslaughter) is criticised for vagueness and imprecison, for not comprehending serious non-fatal injuries, and for failing to recognise that in the absence of clear rules of attribution, any criminal liability imposed on an organisation can only be for failing to prevent something happening. It is suggested that offences (patterned on those of causing death by dangerous, or by careless and drunken driving) of causing death or serious injury by breaking (statutory) regulations would be a much better way of holding businesses and similar bodies as well as individuals liable for death and serious injuries that would not have occurred if those regulations had been obeyed.