discountinvestigator... I read with interest your comment about legal liability. I realise I'm taking this thread off subject, but hope readers will bear with me?
Bowing to your apprarent professional knowledge, perhaps you'd explain "Vicarious Liability"... a phrase much banded around. Some use it in the sense that the employer has it, if one of their staff messes up; but in another sense I've heard it used that the employer can absolve themselves of responsibility if they can prove their staff had been properly breifed and trained, so that they shouldn't have messed up?
If, as you suggest, a Controller is "an operator" in the system and therefore not fully responsible; why could the RAF court-marshalled the controller involved in the Ben McDui F15 CFIT incident (much about which has been posted elsewhere on this Forum).
Finally, (excuse me I may be getting out of my depth here, but IIRC) isn't there a scenario whereby if the employer is called as a witness for the prosecution (i.e. to answer questions on the acused devaition from standard proceddure) they cannot act also for the defence... so they are unable to stand-by their employee (I believe this scenario might have happened in another fatal accident)?