Jarvis insists sabotage is still possible cause of Potters Bar rail crash

Jarvis, the company in charge of maintenance at the time of the fatal rail crash at Potters Bar, continued to insist yesterday that sabotage was a possible cause of the tragedy.

And on the giant public private partnerships (PPP) contract for London Underground, the company revealed that its Tube Lines consortium had contingency plans to buy out Amey, a member of the consortium, if the financially troubled group cannot come up with the cash for its part of the deal.

Reporting a 17 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to £19.0m, for the six months to 30 September, Paris Moayedi, the chief executive, said: "Should it be necessary, the arrangements have always been in place. If one [consortium member] fails, the others can help."

Jarvis, Bechtel and Amey each need to come up with £60m of equity investment to take over the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. The consortium missed the 7 November date it had set to complete the deal and now has a 7 December deadline. However, Mr Moayedi admitted it would be "mid-December" before the three-and-a-half year contract negotiations were finally over.

He said Jarvis had received assurances from the Government that the latest threatened legal action from the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, could not stop the deal. Mr Livingstone is appealing against PPP to the European court.

Mr Moayedi said: "There is another dimension here. A political dimension, which is very difficult for us to predict. My advice to our shareholders is that don't bank on it until it actually happens."

Turning to the crash at Potters Bar in May that killed seven people, he said the cause was still not known. Immediately after the accident it emerged that, at the points which caused the derailment, two sets of nuts were missing, while a third set had been tightened too far.

Mr Moayedi said: "All avenues should be kept open for investigation. It is wrong to assume that it was maintenance [at fault].... We never said sabotage was most likely [the cause] but we have said that every angle should be viewed."