Potters Bar families reject £12m offer

Relatives the dead and survivors of the Potters Bar rail crash are threatening legal action against Railtrack, the maintenance firm Jarvis and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after rejecting a £12m compensation offer.

Seven died and more than 70 were injured last May when the rear coach of a West Anglia Great Northern train derailed at points near Potters Bar station in Hertfordshire.

Louise Christian, the solicitor for the families, said yesterday that legal proceedings were expected because the groups had not admitted liability. She repeated demands for a public inquiry, saying it was "incumbent on this Government" to order one immediately.

"Of the recent major crashes, this crash is marked by something that makes it quite different from other crashes," she said.

"No one has accepted the blame, no one has admitted liability or accepted formal legal liability for what happened.''

She said Jarvis had an "obsessive belief" that the crash was caused by sabotage, claiming there was no evidence to support this. If that was the case, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to claim compensation, she said.

Ms Christian accused Jarvis of using the sabotage theory to absolve itself, and criticised the Government's decision to wait for the outcome of a police and HSE investigation before deciding whether to call an inquiry.

"We just can't have confidence that the HSE and police investigations are going to provide the answers in this case," she said. "The HSE has a massive conflict of interest because, as the ultimate safety regulator, it itself is in the frame."

Ms Christian accused Railtrack of misleading the public by giving the impression that it was offering formal compensation.

"Although Railtrack put out a secret press briefing to Sunday newspapers to create the impression that it was making a very generous offer to victims and that millions of pounds would be paid out and on the table, in fact that did not amount to any offer of any sum of money," she said. "Railtrack subsequently confirmed that no specified sum of money was on the table."