Hatfield: six are charged

Disaster: Four people died in the Hatfield train crash in October 2000

Six rail managers were today charged with manslaughter over the Hatfield crash in which four people died and 70 were injured.

In another dramatic development, Network Rail and maintenance company Balfour Beatty were charged with corporate manslaughter over the disaster in October 2000.

It is the first time individuals or companies have been charged with manslaughter following a rail crash.

Four managers from Network Rail - formerly Railtrack - and two from Balfour Beatty were charged with individual counts of involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence.

There are also six lesser charges, including one against Gerald Corbett, former Railtrack chief executive and now chairman of Woolworths, under health and safety regulations.

The move follows government pledges to reform corporate killing laws that have made it virtually impossible to put large companies in the dock after major disasters.

At Hatfield a GNER express travelling at 115mph careered off the track because of a broken rail. Carriages smashed into iron stanchions carrying power cables.

The carriages tore free from one another when couplings broke or came apart. Investigators found the section of track was in such poor condition it should have been replaced or a temporary speed restriction applied. This had not been done.

The track was found to have broken because of "corner gauge cracking" - minute cracks in the rail which were at first thought to be only at surface but in fact went much deeper.

Railtrack closed hundreds of miles of lines resulting in travel chaos across the UK as lines also suffering from corner gauge cracking were replaced or repaired.

Hundreds of speed limits were ordered in what was described as the worst rail shutdown since the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of passengers deserted the railways - and the industry has still not fully recovered.

A report from Rail Safety found there had been a "failure to manage and execute a competent visual inspection regime" of the Hatfield track.

Ultrasonic inspections of the track had not been conducted properly and there had been a failure "to take appropriate

action to maintain the line." David Bergman, director of the Centre for Corporate Accountability, called the decision to prosecute Railtrack "brave" and "significant".

Robin Kellow, whose daughter Elaine, 24, was killed in the Paddington crash, also applauded the decision.

Mr Kellow, 64, is still hopeful that corporate manslaughter charges will be brought over the 1999 disaster.

He said: "If an individual harms a person they are brought to account - it is only right that the same should apply if a company does something wrong."

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