In what is widely regarded as a high-risk strategy to deflect blame for the tragedy, Jarvis executives told analysts at a private briefing on Monday that the accident was more likely to have been caused by sabotage than poor maintenance. Jarvis' share price has fallen by one-third since the accident, in which seven people died.
But while denying that the accident could be linked to a "systems" fault on the company's part, Jarvis did concede that human error was a possible cause of the crash. "If there has been human failure, it is a one-off," it said.
Jarvis' chief operating officer, Kevin Hyde, told Building on Tuesday that the accident was the result of the "unauthorised movement" of bolts.
Hyde said: "We have gone back and checked all the maintenance records, talked to all our staff and found the work fulfilled all requirements of our contract with Railtrack. There was no systems failure in the maintenance regime. This is a one-off accident which has been, we believe, the result of unauthorised movement of bolts."
To support its call that sabotage should be investigated, Jarvis gave analysts a list of five cases of sabotage on the railways in the past eight years (see factfile below).
Building has learned that at an emergency meeting last Wednesday, Jarvis executives received details of more than 1200 incidents of trespass and vandalism on the East Coast Main Line in the past year.
Jarvis executive told analysts that when the firm inherited the East Coast Main Line from Balfour Beatty in April last year it found serious safety defects and agreed a plan with Railtrack to prioritise repairs.
Analysts were told that the problems it inherited included "seriously out-of-date inspections" and "known defects in track left unattended". It also claimed that it inherited a "dysfunctional management structure and demotivated staff".
Jarvis claimed that there were no track or signal engineers on the ground in April last year, adding that these key workers were now in place. The firm said it had been judged the best rail contractor in four out of the past five months.
Analysts were told that there were:
- 25,000 out-of-date signals and telecom relays when it took over the East Coast Main Line on 1 April 2001
- 318 out-of-date rail defects, "a substantial proportion" of which were supposed to be repaired within 36 hours.
A Balfour Beatty spokesperson rejected the claims made by Jarvis, saying: "We maintained the [East Coast Main Line] contract in accordance with Railtrack standards."
A Railtrack spokesperson said: "We awarded the contract to Jarvis not on a cost basis but because it was willing to put more resources in at the front line [on site] and we have supported that by increasing the money awarded on maintenance and renewal contracts."
Hyde claimed that photographs taken of the points indicated tampering with the signalling. A Jarvis patrolman checked the signal at 12pm on Thursday 9 May. But in the 25-hour period before the accident, four nuts were removed from the signals, which Jarvis claimed would take 10 minutes. The signal was beside the Potters Bar car park, which was separated from the track by a 4 ft high chained gate.
Hyde said Jarvis had decided to defend itself publicly after rail experts and the British Transport Police had said poor maintenance was the cause of the Potters Bar accident.
He said: "It was our intention at the time of the accident not to say anything in respect of the causes. But as more and more commentators were claiming it was maintenance, we felt it was necessary to raise the point that there was sufficient evidence for sabotage not to be ruled out."
The Health and Safety Executive this week said it still had no evidence of sabotage as a potential cause for the crash but had not ruled out the possibility.
Jarvis’ five cases of sabotage in eight years
Manchester 1994A member of staff sacked for sabotaged signalling equipment. He was later prosecuted and imprisoned.
Darlington 1998
Point stretcher-bolts removed
Windsor Bridge 1999
Lock removed from points
Knottingly 1999
Lock removed from points
New Hay Manchester 2000
Signalling equipment case broken into and interlocking wiring cut
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