Pascal Bates

Regulatory prosecutions, inquests, enforcement notice appeals for/against national/local enforcement agencies. Advising regulators and regulated persons on legal requirements and practical solutions. Focus on safety (health and safety, food, fire, railway etc) and other consumer issues (trading standards, planning/environmental enforcement). Recent court cases include: Schindler (2025) – ongoing prosecution of lift maintenance contractor after engineer’s arm lost in lift machinery; Cambridgeshire County Council (2025) – successful prosecution of local authority operating guided busway after catalogue of safety incidents, including three deaths; Hawkeswood Metal Recycling and others (2023) – successful prosecution of four defendants when five died from safety failures in a Birmingham scrapyard; Johnson and others (2023) – successful prosecution of fairground operators when exploding trampoline killed three year old; Shell UK and Ampelmann Operations (2023) – successful prosecution of offshore safety failures of both design of equipment and its operation. Recent advisory includes: the safety of UK spaceports; operation of pressure systems in large-scale manufacturing; safety of two wholly different types of military vehicle. On the consumer side, acting (ongoing) for the port health regulators for food imports at Felixstowe, Harwich, Channel Tunnel and Dover, including extensive litigation (Nutricia – 2025) as the lawfulness of composite product imports from China; regulatory and contractual consequences of adventitious field contamination with allergens (2025); Traffic Commissioners’ duties (2024); regulation of fishing rights over shellfish beds (2024). Frequent statutory construction and real property issues, such as generation of prescriptive easements over a multiple-owner city centre block’s yard.

MA (Cantab). Regulatory A List since 2006.