The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has said it will prosecute Transport for London and the driver and operator of a crashed tram in Croydon in 2016 for alleged health and safety failings.
If the prosecution is successful, it would overturn a jury verdict in an inquest in July that determined the crash was accidental, which was met with fury from the victims’ families. The tragedy is considered the worst to have occurred on a British tramway for more than 90 years.
The ORR said it had “made a fair, independent and objective assessment about what happened” and that the prosecution would enable a court to consider whether health and safety laws had been breached.
Family members welcomed the opportunity to “get some closure” after fighting for five years for the deaths of their relatives to be deemed unlawful.
The inquest jury determined that the tram driver, Alfred Dorris, “became disoriented, which caused loss of awareness in his surroundings, probably due to a microsleep”. He failed to brake in time and drove his tram “towards a tight curve at excessive speed” of around 73kph, on a stretch of track with a 20kph speed limit.
They said the tram operator, Tram Operations Ltd (TOL), had failed to adequately account for the risk of a high-speed derailment or ensure a “just culture” where drivers felt able to report health and safety concerns.
The seven passengers who died – Dane Chinnery, 19, Donald Collett, 62, Robert Huxley, 63, Philip Logan, 52, Dorota Rynkiewicz, 35, Philip Seary, 57, and Mark Smith, 35 – sustained head, chest and other injuries after being ejected from the tram in the crash on 9 November 2016. Fifty-one passengers sustained injuries.
A hearing will take place at Croydon magistrates court on a date to be set imminently.
The ORR’s chief inspector of railways, Ian Prosser, said: “My thoughts are with the families of the seven people who lost their lives on November 9 2016, the many more injured and everyone whose lives have been impacted as a result of this incident.
“Following a detailed and thorough investigation, we’ve taken the decision to prosecute Transport for London, Tram Operations Limited and driver Alfred Dorris for what we believe to be health and safety failings.”
The ORR said corporate manslaughter charges would not be brought against TfL or TOL.
FirstGroup, which owns TOL, said that since the crash it had introduced safety measures including improved speed monitoring, in-cab safety devices, better rosters and more training on the risks of fatigue.
Danielle Wynne, 31, whose grandfather Philip Logan was among those who died in the crash, said she was campaigning to change the law that means a charge of causing death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving does not apply if tram accidents happen when the tram is not on the road.
Wynne told PA Media: “My nan is very poorly and I think this gives some kind of closure for her as well – she was in absolute shock when I told her. It has been a horrible five years of feeling so let down, I feel like our families have been forgotten along the way.”
She said she had hoped for criminal charges but was comforted by the news of prosecution, as the past five years had been “a road of pure hell” and the inquest had “caused more questions than answers”.
“I have a little sense of relief. I think that they should all be held accountable,” Wynne said.
Ben Posford, a partner at the London law firm Osbornes Law who was the lead solicitor for five of the seven families at the inquest, said: “This comes as welcome news for the families of the victims of the Croydon tram crash who have been fighting for years for justice. Their hopes of a criminal prosecution and an unlawful killing conclusion at the inquest were dashed.”
