UK: Network Rail facing huge fine over Potters Bar crash

[John Ashworth]

Network Rail facing huge fine over Potters Bar crash

• Track operator prepares to enter formal guilty plea in criminal case
• Contractor Jarvis is in administration and has not been prosecuted

* Dan Milmo
* guardian.co.uk, Sunday 27 March 2011 17.01 BST

Network Rail could be hit with a multimillion-pound fine over the fatal Potters Bar crash as it prepares to enter a formal guilty plea in a criminal case related to the accident this week.

The owner of Britain's rail tracks and stations is pleading guilty to safety lapses in the run-up to the 2002 crash after inheriting the liability from Railtrack, the privatised business that ran the rail system at the time. Network Rail could be sentenced as soon as Wednesday when lawyers enter a formal plea at St Albans crown court.

The government-backed company is expected to argue in mitigation that the engineering group Jarvis was in charge of maintaining the set of points that derailed a West Anglia Great Northern train outside Potters Bar station, Hertfordshire, on 10 May 2002, killing six passengers and one passerby.

Nonetheless, Network Rail has been told by legal advisers to expect a fine that could run into seven figures, based on the £3.5m fine imposed on Network Rail – also in Railtrack's stead – for the 2000 Hatfield crash that killed four people and left 102 injured. Balfour Beatty, the contractor responsible for maintaining a section of track that broke at Hatfield, saw its initial £10m fine reduced to £7.5m.

Because of Network Rail's extensive mitigation plea, the judge could take some months to hand down a formal sentence. However, a large fine is likely to renew complaints from victims' families over true accountability for the crash, because Network Rail is largely funded by the taxpayer and received a £3.7bn annual government grant last year. Its other source of income is £2bn a year in track usage fees, to which the farepayer is a significant contributor.

Louise Christian, a lawyer who represented victims' families at the Potters Bar inquest, has labelled the legal situation a "farce", with the state effectively underwriting any punishment under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Jarvis has escaped prosecution for its role in the Potters Bar crash because it is in administration and its administrators have declined to take part in proceedings. After consultation with victims' families, the Office of Rail Regulation, the industry's safety watchdog, decided not to push ahead with a prosecution of Jarvis this month. Six passengers on the train – Austen Kark, Emma Knights, Jonael Schickler, Alexander Ogunwusi, Chia Hsin Lin and Chia Chin Wu – were killed in the accident. A pedestrian, Agnes Quinlivan, died after she was hit by falling debris.

A Network Rail spokesman said that the railway was now "almost unrecognisable" since the company took over Railtrack's responsibilities in October 2002, later bringing all maintenance work in-house. The last serious accident involving a passenger service was at Grayrigg in Cumbria in 2007, when a Virgin Pendolino train derailed, killing one passenger.