Sabotage likely cause of Potters Bar crash, claim engineers

Sabotage was the most likely cause of the Potters Bar train crash, according to the engineering company responsible for maintaining the track.

Jarvis Rail believes two attempts were made to derail trains outside the Hertfordshire station, the second of which resulted in the deaths of seven people last Friday.

Two crucial steel nuts were found detached from a set of points by a three-man inspection team on 1 May and replaced. A survey of the site immediately after the crash showed the same two nuts had become detached, along with two others. Jarvis engineers said yesterday that two further nuts had been tightened. An inspection a day before the accident found nothing amiss.

The points were so weakened by the absence of some fittings and the tightening of others, that a "locking bar" which strengthened the equipment broke and the final bogey of the four-carriage train lurched off to the left. The front wheels of the coach stayed on the track, sending it crashing into the station.

Kevin Hyde, the chief operating officer of the Jarvis Group, said: "These were three acts of commission. Three things were done deliberately. They were the reverse of what would be expected under the maintenance regime." If the changes to the points had been made by a Jarvis employee it would have been "utterly perverse".

He said the changes were "possibly the most dangerous" anyone could imagine. It was difficult to believe that it was random. The people concerned must have been "informed", he said. Mr Hyde said the nuts did not just vibrate and fall off, as has been suggested. They had been taken off and dropped into the ballast underneath the rails.

"I have spoken to engineers who have worked in the rail industry for decades and they have never seen a situation where nuts have come off as a result of normal operations. There is sufficient evidence here for a deliberate act of sabotage of the points to require serious further investigation," he said. Jarvis managers believe the points may have been tampered with about 24 hours before the crash. That would mean scores of trains passed over the sabotaged points including some with many more people on board than the train which crashed.

A British Transport Police spokesman said it was premature to draw conclusions about the cause.

A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive, which is investigating the crash, said: "We will take on board any evidence that is put to us."