Network Rail Fined £1 Million for Double Fatality in 2005

On 31 January 2012, Network Rail submitted a guilty plea to three charges brought by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR). The charges related to breaches of health and safety laws that led to the death of two teenage girls at Elsenham station footpath crossing in Essex, in December 2005.

Network Rail admitted failing to carry out a sufficient risk assessment, failing to properly control protective measures at the level crossing and failing to prevent the girls from being exposed to risks to their health and safety – contrary to the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The charges were brought despite a January 2007 Coroner’s verdict of ‘Accidental Death’ and the closure of the ORR’s investigation the following May. The ORR re-opened its investigation when further Network Rail documents were brought to its attention in 2011, which included risk assessments carried out in the years prior to the incident. It was heard that one risk assessment conducted in 2001 described the wicket-gate pedestrian crossing as "undesirably risky".

Judge David Turner QC sentenced Network Rail to a £1m fine and ordered it to pay costs of £60,000. At sentencing, he remarked that Network Rail had demonstrated "narrow thinking, culpable corporate blindness and a complacency going beyond merely inefficient incompetency to entering the realm of criminal failure".

The ORR has shown a willingness to review past incidents and pursue prosecutions many years after the event. It successfully prosecuted Network Rail in 2011 in respect of the 2002 Potter’s Bar crash, leading to a fine of £3m fine. The case also highlights the duty on all employers – not just rail operators – to take into account risks to the general public arising from their undertakings and to address any risks that are identified in a timely fashion, relative to the seriousness of the risk. That Network Rail was aware of safety concerns years prior to the incident, but had failed to properly act, was likely an aggravating factor on sentencing.