The pedestrian level crossing over railway lines near Kenley Station, where 11-year-old schoolboy Jaiden Shehata died after being hit by a train in January 2025, had been recommended for a safety upgrade almost two years earlier, but nothing was done.
Fatal scene: the Bourneview level crossing was rated as needing improvement in May 2023 – almost two years before the incident in which Jaiden Shehata died
The Bourneview crossing was closed in August last year for safety improvements. It has not reopened to pedestrians since and remains “temporarily closed”.
A jury at the Coroner’s inquest into Jaiden Shehata’s death heard from Network Rail’s senior official for level crossings and public safety that Bourneview was considered to be “reasonably high risk”.
In January 2025, the crossing had only the most basic public safety assets: some signage and an iron “kissing gate” on one side of the crossing.
The inquest was held at South London Coroner’s Court in Davis House last week.
The jury found that Jaiden Shehata’s death was accidental.
The jury gave three contributory causes to the boy’s death. Two related to the lack of safety features at the Bourneview crossing.
Jaiden Shehata was a Year 7 pupil at Riddlesdown Collegiate
The jury agreed with the findings of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch report, published last November, that found the schoolboy was looking at his mobile phone when he crossed the rail tracks.
“Firstly, Jaiden did not perceive the danger of the train approaching the crossing, probably because he was distracted by his mobile phone,” a spokesperson for the jury announced to court.
“The second probable cause of the accident was that Bourneview was a passive crossing, which was not fitted with active warning systems giving a visual and auditory warning of the train’s approach.
“A possible further cause was that the design and construction of the crossing could have made it more obvious to pedestrians that they were entering a hazardous area.”
The medical cause of death was recorded as “severe neck injuries”.
Jaiden Shehata was a Year 7 pupil at Riddlesdown Collegiate, and since joining the school in September 2024, he had made the journey to school most days on foot, usually accompanied by his brother.
On this fateful day, January 23, 2025, the train had left Whyteleafe Station about one minute late, but it was already braking before the pedestrian crossing on its approach to Kenley Station.
“The driver of the train sounded the train’s horn and applied the emergency brake on realising that the pedestrian was starting to cross the railway,” the official RAIB report says, based on footage from the train’s CCTV.
“The pedestrian looked up in response to the horn but did not have time to react and move clear of the train before it reached the crossing.”
The train was travelling at around 50mph.
Jaiden Shehata was struck at 8.03am. Police and paramedics were soon at the scene, where the boy was pronounced dead at 8.52am.
Senior Coroner Sarah Ormond-Walshe said that she would be writing a Report to Prevent Future Deaths as a result of the inquest’s findings.
According to Network Rail’s Daniel Fisk’s evidence to the inquest, at its most recent assessment in May 2023, the manager of the level crossing decided that changes were needed to improve its safety.
Fisk said that Network Rail’s policy is to close as many level crossings as they can due to the safety risk they pose to the public. He said that Bourneview had “met our standards to stay open” at the time of the boy’s death.
The Coroner said that there had been “approximately one near miss per year at Bourneview”. A person had died at the same crossing in 2020.
Fatal findings: part of the RAIB report, published in December
Ms Ormond-Walshe said: “Jaiden died in January 2025. The most recent risk assessment conducted on the Bourneview level crossing was completed a year and eight months before his death.” The safety works recommended were not due to be undertaken until March 2026.
The inquest heard that Shehata was watching an eight-second video his friend had sent to him on WhatsApp when he was struck.
Ms Ormond-Walshe told the boy’s family: “Everybody, everybody, looks at their phone. So please, let that go because every single person in this room does that, and he was only 11 years old.
“Thank you so much for your dignity. It must have been so difficult.”
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