DAMNING INDICTMENT OF TORY PRIVATISATION MADNESS

The Tories great white elephant, rail privatisation, was dealt another hammer blow yesterday when the official rail regulator, the Crown Prosecution Service and British transport police opted to reopen investigations into whether criminal proceedings could be brought over the deaths of seven people in the Potters Bar disaster eight years ago.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), the independent safety watchdog, said it was to look again at the crash. In October 2005, the CPS said no charges of manslaughter by gross negligence could be brought.

Today's announcement came after an inquest at Letchworth, Hertforshire, found the crash had been caused by unsafe points. As part of a litany of inadequacies resulting from the hotch -potch nature of privatisation.

A spokesman for the ORR said: "We will now proceed to determine whether any criminal proceedings for health and safety offences should be brought in accordance with the work related deaths protocol." That would include detailed discussions with prosecutors and police.

The protocol exists because the CPS can only prosecute in relation to serious criminal activity, such as manslaughter, while the ORR can prosecute for health and safety offences.

A CPS spokeswoman said: "We will be looking to see whether any evidence came out of the inquest which would require us to review the decision."

The coroner said he would file a report warning of continuing potential risks to travellers, and the Department of Transport said it would consider this carefully. Judge Michael Findlay Baker QC, criticised the "indefensible" length of time families of the victims had had to wait for inquest to be held, saying they were due an apology.

More than 70 people were injured when the 12.45 King's Cross to King's Lynn train came off the rails as it approached the station, where it was not due to stop, at about 1pm on 10 May 2002.

There had been inspection and/or maintenance failures in the period before the crash, the inquest jury concluded, after a seven-week hearing.

Six passengers who died were in the fourth carriage of the train, which became detached and airborne, while the seventh victim, who had been walking nearby, was hit by debris.

The train was travelling at a legal speed – 98mph – and the driver, Gordon Gibson, was cleared of any blame.

The inquest was investigating the deaths of passengers Austen Kark, Emma Knights, Jonael Schickler, Alexander Ogunwusi, Chia Hsin Lin and Chia Chin Wu, and the pedestrian, Agnes Quinlivan.

The coroner said he would file a report under Rule 43 of the 1984 Coroners' Rules, which allows coroners to express concern that circumstances continue to create a risk of other deaths.

"Whatever the causes, the passage of over eight years from the derailment to the conclusion of the hearing of the inquest is indefensible.

"The families are due a public apology, and as the current representative of the system whose abuse has led to this delay, I offer that apology. It feels wholly inadequate, but it is all that it is within my power to do. I hope a line may begin to be drawn, and a sad and lengthy chapter in many lives may be closed."

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report released in May 2003 found that the points were poorly maintained, and this was the principal cause of the accident. The bolts that held the stretcher bars that keep the rails apart had come loose or gone missing, resulting in the points moving while the train passed over them. The points had been fully inspected on 1 May by a team working for the private railway maintenance firm Jarvis, and there had been a further visual inspection on 9 May the day before the crash, with no problems reported. However, that evening a rail worker was travelling on the line northbound and reported "lethal vibrations" on the track at Potters Bar whilst going over that same point on the track, point '2182A'. Jarvis employees did make an inspection of the points, but due to an inadequate incident reporting system, they were sent to the wrong end of the platform to check the track and points and did not find the 'loose nuts' that subsequently led to the accident.

Initially after the accident, Jarvis attempted to divert attention by claimed that the points' poor condition was due to sabotage of some sort, and that its maintenance was not to blame. However, no solid evidence of any sabotage has ever come to light. Furthermore, the HSE report found that other sets of points in the Potters Bar area showed similar (but not as serious) maintenance deficiencies, and the poor state of maintenance "probably arose from a failure to understand fully the design and safety requirements".

Further investigations by the HSE found that heavy and constant vibrations on the stretcher bars and their bolts caused them to in turn vibrate and oscillate until they literally fell off the bolt. This has since been replaced by a two-part locking nut instead of the main nut, and half-size locking nut to hold it in place


Bob Crow, the general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, described the delays as an absolute scandal, and said the verdict "confirms what we already knew – that this tragic loss of life at Potters Bar could have been avoided if safety rather than profits had been the priority on our railways back in May 2002.

"Basic failures of inspection and of maintenance, driven by the greed and fragmentation of rail privatisation, led us to Potters Bar. Those responsible for creating that lethal culture – the politicians and their business associates – will never share the pain of the victims of their gross mismanagement. They have escaped prosecution for their role in this avoidable disaster.

"Private contractors are no longer involved in the day-to-day maintenance of the nation's rail infrastructure as NR took this entire operation, involving some 15,000 people, in-house in 2004. All of the recommendations made by both the industry's own formal inquiry and the health and safety investigation have been actioned. Today, the railways are safer than they have ever been."

How well we all remember those days in the 1990s when John Major promised us all that a private railway would mean less subsidy and a better and more efficient service. The only thing we got more of were rail disasters in quick succession we got Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield and then Potters Bar. The service was widely known to have got worse, ticket prices rocketed and worst of all the private companies required a greater subsidy than British rail ever did.

The Potters Bar disaster is a damning indictment of the lunacy of the Tories drive toward private industry the last time round. God alone knows where that lunacy will lead us this time round.