£3m fine for rail firm over fatal crash at Potters Bar

NETWORK Rail said it was "truly sorry" for the Potters Bar rail crash after the company was fined £3 million yesterday over the 2002 disaster which claimed seven lives.

The rail infrastructure company had pleaded guilty at St Albans Crown Court in Hertfordshire to breaching health and safety regulations which led to a high-speed train derailing at a faulty set of points.

NR's predecessor Railtrack was the infrastructure company in charge at the time of the crash, but NR has shouldered the responsibility.

Sentencing Network Rail (NR) yesterday, Judge Andrew Bright said the crash of the London to King's Lynn train just outside Potters Bar station around 1pm on 10 May, 2002 was a "catastrophic accident". He said the lives of the bereaved families had been devastated and that Railtrack's procedures and standards were "seriously inadequate".

Judge Bright and some of the bereaved families highlighted the fact that, as NR is a not-for-dividend company with no shareholders, any fine for NR would have to be paid from what the judge said was "an income which is substantially derived from public funds".

Perdita Kark, the daughter of Austen Kark CBE, one of the passengers who died in the crash: said: "It's offensive that I pay a fine for something that killed my father."

Train drivers' union Aslef said it was "ludicrous that managers responsible for rail safety walked away unscathed while the public picks up a 3m bill".

NR said it accepted the fine "as we accept the liabilities inherited from Railtrack". The company added: "We say again today that we are truly sorry."

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), which brought the case against NR under the Health and Safety at Work Act, said that safety on the railways had improved, but could be strengthened further.

Pat Smith, 63, whose mother Agnes Quinlivan, 80, was killed by falling debris as she walked close to Potters Bar station, said: "I just hope that other families in the future are not treated as shabbily as we were by the rail companies, and I include Network Rail in that."

Maintenance company Jarvis - which was responsible for the section of track at Potters Bar, but is now in administration - also faced charges, but the ORR decided in March not to proceed as the prosecution was "no longer in the public interest".

Six passengers on the West Anglia Great Northern express - Mr Kark, Emma Knights, Jonael Schickler, Alexander Ogunwusi, Chia Hsin Lin and Chia Chin Wu - were killed.

They were in the train's fourth carriage which became airborne after derailing and ended up getting wedged under the canopy of the station.