Long wait for justice: it has taken nearly seven years for all the legal proceedings following the crash at Sandilands in November 2016
‘This was undoubtedly an accident waiting to happen, quite literally’ said the Old Bailey judge when handing down the sentences to Transport for London and First Group’s Tram Operations Ltd
The operators of the Croydon tram network were today handed fines amounting to £14million for the corporate failings that led to the 2016 crash outside Sandilands in which seven people were killed.
Transport for London was fined £10million and Tram Operations Limited £4million for failing in their health and safety duties.
The operators had also been ordered by the Old Bailey judge to pay £500,000 in legal costs incurred by prosecutors, the Office for Road and Rail.
The early morning tram from New Addington on November 9, 2016, was carrying 69 people when it toppled over on a sharp bend, having been travelling at three times the 12mph speed limit for that stretch of track.
Driver Alfred Dorris was last month cleared of health and safety offences.
Today, presiding judge Mr Justice Fraser told the court: “This was undoubtedly an accident waiting to happen, quite literally.”
He added there was a failure to heed warnings about the risk of drivers becoming disorientated in the tunnel from Lloyd Park to Sandilands on the approach to the curve, and that a report of a “near miss” just days before the crash was “ignored”.
The “complacency” around the inadequate lighting and lack of visual cues in the tunnel was “disturbing”, the judge said.
The Croydon crash was the worst incident involving trams for almost 100 years.
In a statement issued by TfL today, they said, “Every passenger on the tram that morning entrusted their safety to us, but we failed them.”
Victims: From left, Mark Smith, Dane Chinnery, Phil Seary and Dorota Rynkiewicz (l-r) all died in the crash
Victims: From left Philip Logan, Donald Collett and Robert Huxley
The three-day hearing had spent time hearing victim statements from survivors of the crash, several of whom had suffered life-changing injuries, and the bereaved relatives of those killed.
The people who died were Dane Chinnery, 19, Philip Seary, 57, Dorota Rynkiewicz, 35, Robert Huxley, 63, Philip Logan, 52, Donald Collett, 62, and Mark Smith, 35.
Among those giving victim impact statements was Jean Smith, the mother of Mark Smith, who said that no amount of money or justice would bring her son back but getting accountability may “bring some sense of peace”.
She said, “We have to live with the consequences of other people’s actions for the rest of our lives. I’m living a life sentence. It should never have happened.”
Read more: ‘We failed every passenger on that tram and I am truly sorry’
Read more: Time has come for real answers over the Croydon tram crash
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