Dom efter Hatfield afsporing

Network Rail Found Guilty Over Fatal Hatfield Derailment 6. September 2005

NETWORK Rail, the owner of Britain's railway infrastructure, has been found guilty of health and safety offences associated with a fatal derailment at Hatfield in which four people died and more than 100 were injured in October 2000. Sentence will be passed in October.

Four Network Rail employees and one from Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance were found not guilty of individual health and safety charges. Separately, Balfour Beatty, the private firm responsible for track maintenance at Hatfield, had previously admitted breaching safety standards, but was found not guilty of corporate manslaughter. On October 17 five years ago, a GNER train travelling from London to Leeds was derailed at Hatfield because of a broken rail caused by rolling contact fatigue (gauge corner cracking). Subsequent concern over the state of Britain's rail infrastructure saw extensive speed restrictions, to 32km/h, applied across the country.

At the time, Railtrack was in charge of Britain's railway infrastructure but Network Rail assumed its legal responsibilities when it bought Railtrack in October 2002 and began operating as a „not for dividend“ company. Mr Ian McAllister, chairman of Network Rail, commented: „Maintenance of the railway has fundamentally changed since the Hatfield tragedy. Since Network Rail took over, 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'.“

The case has again drawn attention to the issue of corporate manslaughter as it can only be proven if a senior individual of the company concerned is guilty of „gross negligence manslaughter“. When the judge dropped the charges against Balfour Beatty he addressed the families of the victims in the absence of the jury and also brought the issue into the political arena when he said: „I appreciate that these decisions on the manslaughter counts will be a cause of concern, disappointment and perhaps distress to the relatives of those who died in this tragic crash. I have tried to explain why it is I am obliged by the existing law in my judgment to make these rulings.

„This case continues to underline the pressing need for the long-delayed reform of the law in this area of unlawful killing.“