Best Practice & Ethics
Anger over Network Rail fine
The £4m fine handed down to
Network Rail over the Paddington
train crash, in which 31 people died, has been condemned by the
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
(IOSH) for not going far enough.
Network Rail, which maintains the UK’s railways, last year
pleaded guilty to breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act which it
inherited from Railtrack. Network Rail took over National Rail’s legal
liabilities and rail network when it was created in 2002.
Lisa Fowlie, IOSH president, said this sentence emphasises
the need for the forthcoming Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act, which will
offer victims and their families a superior sense of justice that under the
current system of prosecution.
This call was echoed by the
RMT union, which said fines, no matter how
large, will never cause justice to be done. What is needed, said RMT general
secretary Bob Crow, is an effective corporate manslaughter law that puts bosses
whose negligence leads to unnecessary deaths in the dock and facing the prospect
of prison.
Keith Norman, general secretary of the
ASLEF train drivers’ union, called for
the fines imposed on Network Rail to be taken from the bonuses of senior
management.
Norman said that, as Network Rail is funded by the
taxpayer: “If the managers are not fined personally, it means the fines will be
paid by the public. This would be a terrible injustice to passengers who would
end up having to pay for being killed, maimed and injured”.
Links
Network Rail
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
RMT
ASLEF
May 2007
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