Firms fined £13.5m over Hatfield crash
Firms fined £13.5m over Hatfield crash
Balfour Beatty and Network Rail have been fined a total of £13.5m for safety offences related to the Hatfield rail disaster in 2000. Passing sentence on 7 October, Mr Justice Mackay described Balfour Beatty's breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act as 'one of the worst examples of sustained industrial negligence.' Balfour Beatty was fined £10m and Network Rail £3.5m, the two largest safety fines in an English court. The companies were ordered to pay £300,000 each towards the prosecution costs in a case estimated to have cost £8m. Four people died and 102 were injured when the King's Cross to Leeds train came off the tracks at 115mph on 17 October 2000. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the fines showed 'that the courts are now beginning to take health and safety breaches more seriously. But the families of those killed will still feel cheated that no senior executives are to face punishment as a result of their safety crimes.' He added: 'The government urgently needs to address the fact that all the courts can do in a case like this is to fine a company. What is necessary is both a new offence of corporate killing, with a wider range of penalties available, and new legal duties that make directors directly responsible for the health and safety of their staff and customers.' In July, a corporate manslaughter charge against Balfour Beatty - responsible for track maintenance - was thrown out by the judge (Risks 172). After it was cleared of corporate manslaughter, Balfour Beatty admitted it had broken safety rules (Risks 216). Five rail bosses accused in the aftermath of the crash were cleared in July of manslaughter - on the direction of the judge (Risks 215) - and in September of health and safety breaches by the jury (Risks 223).
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