Network Rail guilty of health and safety breach

Tuesday, 6 September 2005 12:00 AM

A court has today found Network Rail guilty of breaching health and safety regulations, which led to the Hatfield crash in 2000.

However, three former managers of Railtrack - the company Network Rail replaced - and two former employees of Balfour Beatty, which was in charge of maintaining the East Coast Mainline at the time of the accident, were cleared.

The crash on October 17th 2000 was caused by the derailment of a train travelling at high speed from London Kings Cross to Leeds. Four passengers died and more than 100 were injured.

The prosecution said Network Rail failed to address a backlog of essential work on the railways and claimed that the track had been due for repair 21 months before the crash.

"The Hatfield tragedy was a terrible event for everyone involved," said Network Rail chairman Ian McAllister after today's verdict at the Old Bailey, where the rail company was found guilty of breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act.

"This has been a long trial, it has now reached its conclusion and we respect the findings of the court."

But the chairman highlighted the changes that have been made since then, saying the company has doubled in size to 30,000 employees, and has invested in new technology to maintain the railways.

"Maintenance has been taken in-house rather than being outsourced, and we have changed our approach from a 'find and fix' maintenance regime to one of 'predict and prevent," he added.

Alistair Cook, 52, Sean Fugill, 52, and Keith Lea, 55 of Railtrack, and Anthony Walker, 48, and Nicholas Jeffries, 50, of Balfour Beatty were cleared of all charges.

Mr Justice Mackay had previously cleared all five, as well as Balfour Beatty, of manslaughter charges. Balfour Beatty had pleaded guilty to a charge under the Health and Safety Act.

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