Bawden: Potters Bar crash inquest is ‘getting to the heart of it’

Published: 04 June 2010

ISLINGTON author Nina Bawden – who lost her husband Austen in the Potters Bar rail crash in 2002 – said that the facts are now finally coming out.

Ms Bawden spoke as eye witnesses to the accident finally gave evidence at the inquest which opened in Hertfordshire this week, eight years after the crash.  

Ms Bawden cam­paigned vociferously for a public inquiry into the crash after the rail maintenance company initially refused to accept responsibility. She said she was relieved that the inquest was getting under way.

“I can’t attend the inquest myself because I haven’t been well,” she said. “But my daughter is there in my place and I’m represented by solicitor Louise Christian. Some of the evidence is really getting to the heart of it.” Ms Bawden said her written evidence will be presented later on this month. 

On the day of the accident Ms Bawden and Austen were on their way to Cambridge for a birthday party. They bought first-class tickets and it was their coach which was worst affected when the train was thrown off the line.

Her book Dear Austen, published in 2005, was a tribute to her husband, a former head of the BBC World Service, and attacked the “lack of honour and integrity” among railway executives in the aftermath of the crash.

The inquest is being held at  the Spirella Ballroom in Letchworth and is expected to last two months.

Seven people died and 76 others were injured when a train bound for King’s Lynn derailed at high speed in Potters Bar on May 10, 2002.

Network Rail and maintenance firm Jarvis, which announced in March that it would go into administration, accepted liability for compensation claims, but initially denied maintenance failings had led to the crash, stating instead that sabotage was to blame.

But a Health and Safety Executive report in 2003 concluded that poor maintenance of a set of points had contributed to the crash. No criminal charges were brought against any rail staff.

Ms Bawden, 85, who lives in Angel, suffered broken ribs, legs, arms and collarbone in the crash.