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In episode s01e06 'Me²' Rimmer's last moments alive are shown. Rimmer is being shouted at by the captain with a statement like 'It's your fault, you can't do sloppy work on the drive plate'. Moments later there's an explosion and they all die.
I see an inference in this whereby Rimmer killed the crew due to his sloppy work. Is this correct? Is it ever confirmed?
Yes.
In the Pilot episode, titled The End, after Lister has woken from suspension he asks Holly how everyone died:
LISTER: How?
HOLLY: The drive plate was inefficiently repaired. It blew, and the entire crew was subjected to a lethal dose of cadmium 2 before I could seal the area.
And then, when he gets to the drive room and starts trying to identify the piles of dust by taste, it is said:
HOLLY: ... that's Second Technician Rimmer.
LISTER: Oh, yeah? I didn't recognise him without his report book. What was Rimmer doing in the Drive Room?
HOLLY: He was explaining to the Captain why he hadn't sealed the drive plate properly.
The clear implication being that, yes, Rimmer was responsible for the deaths of the crew of the Jupiter Mining Corporation's Red Dwarf.
What a smeg-head.
RIMMER: Yes. That's because I'm dead. Dead as a can of spam. And it's all thanks to you. LISTER: Me? What did I do? RIMMER: If you hadn't kept that stupid cat, Lister, and hadn't been sent to stasis, I would have had some help when I was mending the drive plate, and I wouldn't be dead.
Aug 20, 2015 at 15:49
In the episode "Justice" it was established in a court of law that although Rimmer was responsible for failing to re-secure the drive plate (the act that ultimately resulted in the deaths of the Red Dwarf's crew) that the ship's Captain and senior officers were themselves negligent in allowing him to have had that duty in the first place.
JUSTICE: In the view of your counsel's eloquent defence, together with the reams of material evidence he submitted on computer card, this court accepts that, in your case, the mind-probe is not anadequate method of assessing guilt. It is not possible for you to have committed the crimes for which you blame yourself, and you may therefore go free.
RIMMER: Objection!
KRYTEN: Sir, what are you objecting to?
RIMMER: I want an apology.
The idea that a Technician: 2nd Class would be put in a position where he could destroy the ship is inherently laughable and speaks to either a design failure or a total lapse of command. Although he's physically responsible for the act, he bears no more moral responsibility for it than would a janitor who accidentally fell onto the nuclear launch button.
Hollister sent a 2nd class technician (vending machine repairman specialization), the 2nd lowest ranked person on the ship to make a critical repair with no supervision from the people who were aboard who knew how to deal with those matters. Any court would consider the disaster to be Hollister's fault.
You don't have to take my word for it though. In series 04 episode 03: Justice, Rimmer is literally put on trial because a Justice Computer scanned all their brains and found that Arnold felt guilt for killing all those people.
Kryten "by lunch time" managed to hammer out a defense that clearly separated culpability from just a misplaced feeling of guilt. Kryten saves the day by proving no officer in their right mind would allow that man to endanger the entire crew. A beautiful closing statement. "This man is not guilty of manslaughter. He is only guilty of being Arnold J. Rimmer. That is his crime. It is also his punishment. The defense rests."
RIMMER: If you hadn't kept that stupid cat, Lister, and hadn't been sent to stasis, I would have had some help when I was mending the drive plate, and I wouldn't be dead.