New date for rail crash firms prosecution
Network Rail will appear in crown court in 7 weeks time with a maintenance company so that they can both face charges related to the Potters Bar train crash of 2002.
The case, which was brought by the authoritative Office of Rail Regulation, was due to be heard in court by magistrates on the 7th of January.
However, the ORR ruled that proceedings will now start at Watford’s magistrates’ court on the 21st of February instead.
As a direct result of the crash that occurred on the 10th of May 2002 in Potters Bar, six people on board the London to King’s Lynn route died, as well as a pedestrian, when it completely derailed. The maintenance company that had the contract for the track that the train came off, Jarvis Rail, went into administration back in March of 2010.
Yesterday, the ORR said that Jarvis’s administrators had provided necessary consent that will allow the ORR to press ahead with the criminal proceedings against the troubled company for the tragedy that occurred at Potters Bar. As well as this however, overall responsibility rests originally rested with Railtrack, which was assumed by Network Rail in October 2002, not long after the crash.
Following a public inquest into the disaster that took place earlier in 2010, the ORR announced last month that it was ready to prosecute both Network Rail and Jarvis as part of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act. Back then, Gerry Doherty, who is the leader of the rail union, TSSA, was in better spirits suggesting that it would finally be known soon who was to blame for the tragedy.