District Judge John Woollard at Basildon Magistrates Court committed Network Rail to a sentencing hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court on 15 March where the taxpayer-funded, not-for-profit company faces a substantial fine.

  The guilty plea vindicates the families of the two girls who always suspected Network Rail must have known that the crossing was potentially life-threatening to pedestrian users.

  Speaking outside the court after the initial hearing, Chris Bazlinton, father of Olivia Bazlinton, said: “I am angry because all of this should have come out in 2006. Network Rail withheld documents from us and from official inquiries, and from the coroner’s inquest which was a farce. How high did the cover up go?”


Criminal prosecution

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), Britain’s independent railway safety and economic regulator, brought the criminal prosecution against Network Rail.  

  The ORR charged Network Rail with failing to carry out proper assessments of the risks to the safety of members of the public using the footpath crossing, and with failing to have in place adequate arrangements to underpin those assessments.

  Network Rail own and operate Elsenham station footpath crossing. The company pleaded guilty to two charges under The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and guilty to one charge under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

Death Trap

Reg Thompson, father of Charlotte Thompson, said: “Network Rail knew about Elsenham and yet the company was happy to blame the deaths on the girls’ own actions.

  “I never believed that Charlie and Liv were the architects of their own terrible end,” added Thompson. “It has taken six years to reveal the truth. Network Rail knew that Elsenham was a death trap.”

  Red warning lights and a yodel alarm had sounded as the girls’ northbound London Liverpool Street-Cambridge train passed over the crossing and halted alongside the opposite platform further up the line.

  The lights and alarm carried on as the girls opened the wicket gates that never locked. The girls walked onto the crossing and were instantly struck and fatally injured by a southbound Stansted Airport express train.

Cover Up

The ORR brought the prosecution against Network Rail after it completed its reopened investigation into the deaths of the two girls. The investigation had originally closed in May 2007 but the ORR reopened it in February 2011 after further Network Rail documents came to light.

  Two reports prepared in 2002 – three years before the tragedy – indicated dangers at the crossing and expressed concerns. But no action was taken.

  One document – ‘Part B’ of a May 2002 risk assessment – suggested wicket gates that lock automatically when a train approaches should be fitted at the crossing. Locking wicket gates that could have saved the girls along with a pedestrian footbridge over the tracks were later fitted in August 2007.

  The existence of the ‘Part B’ document – and the fact it was withheld from rail safety inquiries in 2006 and from the Coroner in 2007 – only came to light in early 2011.

  A further document, a memo written in 2001 by John Hudd, at the time Network Rail’s Level Crossing Standards Manager for East Anglia, had warned “the risk of disaster is real” and described the “irresistible…temptation” to cross the line exactly as the girls did four years later.

This document, published by The Times newspaper in May 2011, had not been given to rail safety investigators in 2006 or to the Coroner conducting an inquest in 2007. Newly appointed chief executive David Higgins told Members of Parliament last year that the company had been aware of the memo since January 2006.

  Higgins has since said no evidence exists to suggest documents were deliberately withheld.

Network Rail promises

David Higgins, chief executive of Network Rail since 2011, said after the hearing: “Network Rail accept that it was responsible for failings, and therefore we have pleaded guilty.  

Nothing we can say or do will lessen the pain felt by Olivia and Charlotte’s families. But I have promised them we are committed to making our railway as safe as possible.”

  Network Rail has closed over 500 of its 6,500 level crossings after further deaths, injuries and incidents in recent years. But tragedies continue.

  The latest involved Katie Littlewood, aged 15, who was hit and killed by a train on Saturday, 28 January 2012 at Johnson’s Footpath Crossing in Bishop’s Stortford – only a few miles from Elsenham. (PC)

REFLECTIONS...


The morning of December 3, 2005 was the kind teenagers really enjoy - a Saturday morning.

  Olivia Bazlinton, 14, and Charlie Thompson, 13, bright, happy friends, popular with their pals and much-loved by their families, set off on a Christmas shopping trip to Cambridge with their saved money.

  Assigned by Rail Professional magazine (below), I first visited Elsenham station in early 2006, just a few weeks after Olivia and Charlotte were horribly killed. I still remember my shock and dismay at Elsenham’s antiquated footpath level crossing as it operated on such a busy, modern commuter and high-speed line.

  Elsenham was a death trap disguised as a rural railway station. Any lingering preconceived idea that the girls were somehow at fault themselves quickly evaporated after watching the station function for thirty minutes.
















































(Above): Charlotte Thompson, aged 13 (Right): Olivia Bazlinton, 14

(Above): Chris Bazlinton, Olivia’s father, at Elsenham level crossing in 2006

(Left): The Times, 1 February 2012 with Tina, Olivia’s mother

(Right & below): Rail Professional, May 2006

‘Audible warnings

The crossing control keeper operated the road crossing gates yet seemed oblivious to pedestrians using the adjacent footpath crossing. Also, Elsenham’s platforms were are not directly parallel but staggered diagonally opposite and quite far from each other.

  Olivia and Charlotte might understandably have thought that a red light and an audible warning related to their Cambridge-bound downline train that had already passed over the crossing and was now standing in the downline platform some distance away.

  I saw myself passengers confused as to whether the warnings meant a train had arrived or a second one was imminent.

  Elsenham also had only one ticket machine - on the upline (London/Stansted-bound) platform. Like like all other downline (Cambridge-bound) passengers coming from Elsenham village, the girls would’ve had to cross the tracks to buy a ticket and then cross back over the tracks to catch their train.

  The unlocked gates simply made it too easy to try and cross the tracks. Locking gates, a footbridge and possibly a downline platform ticket machine could’ve saved them.

  I stood by the upline wicket gate. Views of approaching upline trains were frighteningly restricted by large posts and by the track curving sharply behind trees.

  The girls would’ve had no chance of seeing the high-speed express service that thundered towards Elsenham at 70mph.

‘Bear Trap in the woods’

Taxpayers task and handsomely pay Network Rail to provide a safe railway network. Sure enough, Elsenham station was later equipped in 2007 with locking gates, distinctive audible warnings and a footbridge.

  But, in 2005, Network Rail owned and managed - to use car jargon - a ‘cut and shut’ station and level crossing.

  Reg Thompson, Charlotte’s father, described Elsenham station more aptly as a ‘bear trap in the woods’.

  The families had to endure a heinous cover up instigated somewhere within Network Rail’s corporate structure. There may still be people connected with the company who are only ‘sorry’ their ‘save ass’ ruse was exposed. We may never know. Justice may never truly be served.


From Ladbroke Grove to Elsenham

Six years on, Network Rail’s senior corporate officers jump whenever they hear ‘Elsenham’, ‘Charlotte Thompson’ and ‘Olivia Bazlinton’ mentioned. Good. So they should. Skilled, diligent Network Rail staff on the tracks, stations, catenary and signalling are identifying ‘bear trap’ level crossings across the country and helping to close them.

  In this light, Livvy and Charlie’s legacy is an ongoing programme that will save lives in the future. Annual numbers of level crossing fatalities seem to be falling.

  As Chris Bazlinton said after Network Rail pleaded guilty, the girls’ families derive a “grim satisfaction” from this outcome.

  It will always be shameful that Network Rail forced the families to endure six torturous years of lies and deception.

  And, it will always remain awful that Olivia and Charlotte had to pay the ultimate price for the failings of adults handsomely paid to do their corporate duty.

  For all of these reasons, Elsenham should be seen in the same light as other UK rail disasters - Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield, Potters Bar and Grayrigg. They constantly remind us that the highest price has been paid to make the UK’s railways safer. (Paul Coleman, London Intelligence)

More on Elsenham tragedy... www.paulcolemanslondon.blogspot.com          Photo of Olivia Bazlinton courtesy of http://olivia-renee-bazlinton.gonetoosoon.org/


Photo of Charlotte Thompson: PA via BBC News                        © Words: Paul Coleman LONDON INTELLIGENCE All Rights Reserved 2012