Amendment of charges — failing to ensure health and safety of workers — exposing workers to risk of death or serious injury — charge inadequately particularised — “training” — Criminal Procedure Act 2011, ss 16, 17, 18, 133 & 379 — Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, ss 36(1)(a), 48(1) & 48(2)(c) — New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, s 24(a) — Fulton Hogan Ltd v Canterbury Regional Council [2008] NZDC 17099 — Police v Wyatt [1966] NZLR 1118 — Gamble v R [2012] NZCA 91 — Talley’s Group Ltd v WorkSafe New Zealand [2018] NZCA 587 — WorkSafe New Zealand v Talley’s Group Ltd [2017] NZHC 1103 — R v Holt CA 59/06 CA 78/06 30 May 2006 — R v Scunthorpe Justice, Ex Parte McPhee & Gallagher (1998) 162 JP 635 — Civil Aviation Authority v The Helicopter Line Ltd [2017] NZDC 22210. The defendant faced a charge of failing to ensure the health and safety of its workers. The charge arose from an incident where one of the defendant's employees (the victim) died after inhaling fumes from a solvent that he had been using to lay a carpet. The defendant made an application for the charge to be amended, on the grounds that the charge was inadequately particularised and did not fully and fairly inform the defendant of its substance. Therefore, the defendant argued, it could not tell what case it had to answer, and the charge should be amended to omit two of the four particulars that were not properly identified. The defendant argued further that for the Court to simply require the prosecution to add further particulars to the charge would be contrary to the interests of justice in that it would be prejudicial to the defendant. The prosecution argued that the particulars in the charging document were sufficient, bearing in mind that it had also served the defendant with a summary of facts. The Court considered that the prosecution's summary of facts adequately specified the alleged breaches that had led to the death of the victim. The summary made it clear that the solvent that the victim had been using was a hazardous substance. Therefore there had needed to be an effective risk assessment of the place where the victim had been working at the time, but as clearly stated in the summary, this assessment did not occur. The summary was also clear that the defendant had failed to train its workers to be aware of risks to their health and safety when using the solvent. Therefore the Court was satisfied that both of the particulars that the defendant wanted omitted from the charge were in fact adequately specified. However the Court did agree to make amendments to the wording of the charging document, as had been agreed by the parties. Judgment Date: 4 February 2021.