Fresh bid to sue over Paddington

Railtrack and passenger train company chiefs will be prosecuted on health and safety charges as a result of the Paddington rail disaster, it was revealed today.

National watchdog the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is expected to announce within days that it is to launch prosecutions against both Railtrack and Thames Trains, whose driver was the initial cause of the disaster after passing through a signal at red.

The accident, in October 1999, killed 31 people and injured 400.

A successful prosecution could result in huge fines or even prison sentences if any of those involved are found to have acted in a wilfully negligent manner.

The HSE move follows the decision last week by the Crown Prosecution Service not to press ahead with manslaughter charges on the grounds that there was not enough evidence against "any person or company".

The HSE, which has conducted a long investigation into the disaster, is looking at prosecution on different grounds from the CPS and has made a detailed study of all the safety implications that led to the tragedy. It will consider its case for prosecution purely on safety grounds, whether rules were broken or ignored and whether the tragedy could have been prevented had action been taken earlier.

Michael Hodder, 31, drove his Thames Trains turbo through Signal 109 at red minutes after leaving Paddington station. He continued unchecked for 700 metres and into the path of a Great Western Express coming into London.

They met at a combined speed of more than 130mph. Both drivers were among those who died.

But Lord Cullen, in his exhaustive investigations and public inquiry, did not find driver Hodder solely responsible for the tragedy. Instead a catalogue of failings and management blunders was revealed.

Railtrack was found guilty of a "lamentable failure" in responding to the recommendations of inquiries into two previous accidents in the area - including one at the same signal 18 months before.

The company had effectively ignored three written warnings made by First Great Western before the crash - even though the signal had been passed at danger eight times in the previous six years by different drivers. They had complained they could not see the signal properly because it was partially blocked by overhead rail infrastructure.

There was a "slack and complacent regime" among signalling staff at the centre in Slough, who were "not alive to the potentially dire consequences of a signal passed at danger (SPAD)." The inquiry heard how a quicker reaction by signallers could have prevented or greatly reduced the severity of the crash.

Thames Trains was condemned for "gaps in training", where even some driving instructors did not realise they were supposed to teach knowledge of individual routes.

Exactly what led to driver Hodder passing through Signal 109 will never be known. But the inquiry heard how the poor siting of Signal 109 - it has still not been brought back into use - coupled with the effect of "bright sunlight at a low angle" were found to have been possible contributing factors.

Lord Cullen made 89 separate recommendations to improve safety generally on the railways in his near 300-page report.

? US finance group Babcock & Brown has signalled that it may be a possible bidder for all or part of Railtrack, which was forced into administration by Transport Secretary Stephen Byers.

A spokesman for the US company said it was "keenly interested".

WestLB, the state-backed German bank, has also notified the Government of its interest, and has put forward a takeover approach.