Survivors group demands Blair apology

The row over Labour's email smear campaign took a new twist today when the chairman of the survivors' group from the Paddington rail crash branded the Government "despicable and disgusting".

Simon Benham, who took over the leadership of the group from financial consultant Pam Warren, said he and his fellow victims had been "shocked and distressed" by the efforts of officials at the Department of Transport to investigate their backgrounds in a clear attempt to "dig dirt".

In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard he upped the pressure on the Prime Minister to offer a personal apology, declaring: "Tony Blair himself should have the decency to step forward and say sorry.

"He is, after all, ultimately responsible for actions of his officials whose actions have deeply hurt us."

While the Department of Transport and former Transport Secretary Stephen Byers have offered full apologiesto the survivors, Mr Blair has so far merely expressed his "regret" about the email campaign in a Downing Street statement.

The Tories also increased the pressure on Mr Blair to say sorry and demanded to know if attempts by political advisers in Whitehall to check the political affiliations of members of campaign groups were common practice.

The affair - which dramatically laid bare the continuing obsession with spin and manipulation at the heart of the Government - surfaced after the Transport Department admitted the existence of emails sent out by Mr Byers's former special adviser, Dan Corry, to Labour party officials.

Mr Corry, who quit Whitehall last week along with Mr Byers, demanded to know if there was any evidence that Mr Benham or any of his colleagues were Tories in a clear attempt to smear them by dragging them into a political row.

The emails were sent on 23 May - the day after the first newspaper reports surfaced showing how Mr Benham and Mrs Warren clashed with Mr Byers over Railtrack.

Mr Benham, 25, told the Standard: "Our group members are shocked and distressed to find they had become the unwitting subjects of an investigation by transport officials, who are so afraid of what we might do or say they launched a probe into our backgrounds.

"We are just ordinary people who were hurt in the Paddington rail crash and formed a group - with no political affiliations - to campaign for safer railways.

"The Government has acted in a despicable and disgusting way."

The Government claimed the messages sought information not on Mrs Warren but on Mr Benham and other members of the group. However, this raised the question of why both the Transport Department and Mr Byers issued personal apologies to Mrs Warren if she was not the target.

Mrs Warren, 35, said: "The whole affair is nasty and spiteful and, above all, hurtful.

"If anyone is going to apologise it has to be Tony Blair - and face-to-face. He owes us that. Why one of his department has to pick on someone who has been through enough pain is mean. I was burned to a crisp. I almost lost my hands and I can no longer work. Haven't I been though enough?

"We are a non-political group, we have always said that. I don't care if our group members are Conservative, Labour or Monster Raving Loony Party - our sole aim is to get safer railways."

The Downing Street statement said: "The Prime Minister shares Alistair Darling's view that this should not have happened. It was wrong and did happen and he shares regret that it did."

Mrs Warren said: "That's no apology. And it's not just me he should apologise to. There are 81 members in the group and we're not going anywhere."

The Tories said the row showed how the legacy of Mr Byers continued to stalk the Government even after Mr Byers was replaced by Alistair Darling.

Labour MP Tony Wright, said he believed the survivors group had joined the political campaign against "besieged" Mr Byers and, in doing so, had suffered a "slight loss of moral authority".

Email exchanges that forced apology
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