Balfour Beatty Rail fined £150k for rail fatality

Balfour Beatty Rail Infrastructure Services (BBRIS) and McGinley Recruitment Services were fined a total of £325,000 in the Central Criminal Court, London today (Friday) following the death of a rail worker nearly four years ago.

Michael Mungovan, 22, died in the early hours of 9 October 2000 after being struck by a train at Vauxhall, London.

Mungovan had been told by BBRIS to locate switches near the track and fix equipment to them to cut the flow of electric current to the track despite little experience of working on the railways. He was killed after being struck from behind by a train as he walked down the track towards the platform.

BBRIS, known at the time of the incident as Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance, and McGinley, the recruitment agency who supplied labour to Balfour, had both pleaded guilty at a hearing on 16 June 2004.They were fined £150,000 and £175,000 respectively after being charged under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 for failing in their duty of care towards Mungovan.

HM railway inspector Chris Collett who led the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation said: “This untimely and unnecessary death underscores the need for
companies to ensure that those working on the railways do so only when they have received proper training, instruction and information, and that they are supervised by competent people. 

“Events earlier this week have shown that railways are dangerous places and it is essential that work on them is effectively managed.”

He added that since Mungovan’s death, the rail industry revised its Rule Book to make explicit the requirement that trackworkers undertaking possession work are properly supervised. 

Dr Allan Sefton, HSE director of rail safety, concluded: “Michael’s death was a result of systemic failures by McGinley Recruitment Services and an unsafe system of work operated by BBRIS at the time.”

The jury at the inquest into Mungovan’s death on May 2002 returned a verdict of accidental death, but the victim’s family has refused to rule out bringing a civil case.

Following the case, a BBRIS statement admitted that the death “is a tragedy which should never have happened". It added: “Balfour Beatty has led the way in developing and introducing improved procedures, some of which have become industry-wide standards, designed to ensure that people who work on railways are safe.”  

 

An MRS statement said: “We acted immediately after the accident to enhance procedures. In addition, a number of changes to both MRS procedures and rail industry practices more broadly were implemented as a result of the official inquest.
“MRS will now look at the judges summary and consider any additional actions which may be required.”