Olivia Bazlinton, Charlotte Thompson, Elsenham, MPs inquiry into level crossing safety, Robin Gisby: "Negligent", "Appalling", "Fundamental watershed"

A top ranking and highly-paid Network Rail director admits management was "negligent" over the deaths of two young girls at a level crossing - and says the company's treatment of the bereaved families was "appalling". Paul Coleman reports.

"Negligent" and "appalling"…

...but a "fundamental watershed"

Robin Gisby, Network Rail managing director for network operations, admits Network Rail management was "negligent" at the time of the December 2005 rail disaster at Elsenham, when two friends, Olivia Bazlinton, aged 14, and Charlotte Thompson, 13, were killed by a train at the Essex station's footpath  level crossing.

"Elsenham was a fundamental watershed for this business," says Gisby, speaking on 4 November 2013 to Members of Parliament on the House of Commons Transport Select Committee inquiry into level crossing safety.

Committee chairman Louise Ellman asks Gisby about the fatalities of Olivia Bazlinton and Charlotte Thompson: "Would you agree it was negligent management at the time of Elsenham?"

- "Yes," replies Gisby.

Appalling

"It was a watershed," adds Gisby, who is paid over £380,000 in 2013. "What happened there, the state that our company was in over risk assessments (of level crossings), and the subsequent behaviour of the company towards the families involved was quite appalling."

Responsible

In 2005, Gisby, as Network Rail director of operations and customer services, was responsible for day-to-day train operations. "Somebody else was responsible for maintenance, engineering and asset management," Gisby tells Ellman.

Gisby, asked by Ellman if he was responsible for level crossing risk assessments in 2005, says: "People I had in the organisation at that time were responsible for filling in some of the data. The models and algorithms and their application lay elsewhere within the business."

Wrong

Ellman asks Gisby to explain an accident report, issued after the 2005 tragedy, that said the two girls were 'trespassers', even though they had both purchased train tickets.

"I think it was quite inadequate and quite inappropriate to use that phrase," replies Gisby. "That choice of words was completely wrong."

Hudd and Hill

Ellman then quizzes Gisby about why two critical documents about Elsenham's level crossing were not revealed before the tragedy and also not disclosed to investigators in its aftermath.

"I can't easily explain," replies Gisby."I don't know why those things weren't produced. They certainly should've been. They were somewhere within the organisation."

The Hill Part B risk assessment and the 'Hudd memo' - revealed only in 2010 by a whistleblower within Network Rail - had warned four years before the girls were killed that the 'risk of disaster' at Elsenham level crossing was 'real'. If Network Rail had acted on recommendations made in the documents - chiefly to install locking pedestrian gates - the two girls would not have been able to access the tracks.

Families

Gisby claims Network Rail is a much different organisation in 2013 - especially in managing level crossings. Tina Hughes and Chris Bazlinton are sat right behind Gisby in the Grimond committee room. Gisby pays tribute to the "actions of the families" of Olivia Bazlinton and Charlotte Thompson after the disaster. 

The families have campaigned against Network Rail to reveal the truth about the dangers of Elsenham's footpath crossing and the risk assessments that predicted disaster - and they have worked with the company to improve level crossing safety at Elsenham, and elsewhere.

"Elsenham was a fundamental watershed for this business," says Gisby. "We are much better now at managing level crossings. The data from accident investigations stands up much better now than the appalling place where we were back in 2005."

Risk at Inquest

Ellman asks Gisby why Network Rail lawyers argued - successfully - in 2007 that risk assessment should not be given to the coroner's inquest into the girls' deaths. "I can't be sure of the view of our legal team there," replies Gisby. "We are in a completely different place. All the risk assessments of our level crossings, we have published in the last year, part of our move to much greater transparency."

Gisby tells Ellman that Network Rail have added a "narrative" element to data and algorithms used to assess risks to level crossing users. "We talk to train drivers and talk much more to the local community to get a much richer view of the current risk profile of a level crossing," he says.

Gisby adds Network Rail will spend over £100 million making risky level crossings safer and closing those deemed as dangerous. "We've still got a long way to go," says Gisby, before reporting another "tragic incident" has occurred at a level crossing that very morning (4 November).

Misuse of 'misuse'

The committee session ends after Stephen Hammond, the government's parliamentary under secretary of state for transport, has given oral evidence. Afterwards, Tina Hughes and Chris Bazlinton, Olivia's parents, personally reproach Hammond for persistently misusing the term 'misuse of level crossings' during his evidence. 
Bazlinton and Hughes tell Hammond that if a level crossing is deemed not safe it is surely wrong to casually say someone involved in an incident there has 'misused' that crossing. They tell Hammond users involved in accidents misunderstand instructions at unsafe crossings; but only a minority deliberately misuse those crossings.

Hammond listens but offers no direct reply, before he shakes their hands and leaves the room.

In January 2012, Network Rail pleads guilty to breaches of health and safety law in relation to the deaths of Olivia Bazlinton and Charlotte Thompson. In March 2012, Network Rail is fined £1 million.

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, November 2013

Level crossing safety, Elsenham, Olivia Bazlinton, Charlotte Thompson, Transport Select Committee MPs Inquiry

Outside in Whitehall Gardens, the inscription on the military statue chimes: 'The boldest measures are the safest.' 

Inside the nearby House of Commons Grimond committee room, accusations fly about cowardice causing endangerment. 

Chris Bazlinton accuses Network Rail of a cover-up in the aftermath of the death of his daughter, Olivia Bazlinton, aged 14, who along with her friend Charlotte Thompson, 13, was killed when struck by a train at Elsenham level crossing in 2005. "I just find it incredible that the two most important documents in the case were lost," says Bazlinton. "I don't believe it."

Costs and value

Tina Hughes, Olivia's mother, also recalls how John Armitt, then Network Rail chief executive, had told her the company - owner Britain's railways - needed to "consider the costs of safety against the value of human life".

Hughes now works with Network Rail to improve safety at level crossings. "Network Rail has made significant changes but they've only scratched the surface on what needs to be done," says Hughes.

MPs on the House of Commons Transport Select Committee are due to continue their  inquiry into level crossing safety on November 4 - when Network Rail are due to give evidence.

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, October 2013

Elsenham: Olivia Bazlinton, Charlotte Thompson

People who lost loved ones at rail level crossings get an opportunity to speak to politicians. Will an inquiry by MPs improve rail safety?

Elsenham: a matter of accountability

www.londonintelligence.co.uk/elsenham/


© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, October 2013

Andalucia Star anniversary: Jill McNichol-Harrell's annual tribute to the crew including Mrs. L.A. Green, William Wheeler

Today - 6 October, 2013 - I received the following message - from Jill McNichol-Harrell. Jill delivers this message faithfully at this time every year, writes Paul Coleman.

'Please join me in a toast to Captain Hall, Mr. Wheeler, Mrs. Green 

and the brave crew of the Andalucia Star and all who sailed in that ill fated ship. 

Much gratitude to all the crews of the many other merchant ships 

who kept the life lines open during World War 2.'

Jill McNichol-Harrell.

The reason why Jill sends this message every year on this day becomes clear if you read the post below - first published on 7 October 2010.  It's seventy-one years ago to this very day - 6th October - that the Blue Star Line cargo ship, the Andalucia Star, was torpedoed and sunk during the Second World War - a catastrophe that Jill and most - but not all - other crew and passengers survived, chiefly due to the bravery and professionalism of the ship's crew.

Lifeboat 
(First published 7 October 2010) Out of the blue I recently learnt that another little girl - three-year-old Gillian Ash - was rescued from the sea after the Blue Star Line cargo ship, the Andalucia Star, was torpedoed and sunk on 6th October 1942 during the Second World War.

  Gillian Ash fell from the same tipped lifeboat as Jill McNichol, the five-year-old girl whose rescue I've detailed in previous postings. Gillian's mother plucked her from the cold choppy Atlantic and pulled her up into a lifeboat. 

  I received details about Gillian Ash from Mary Godward, whose uncle George Godward was on his way to England as a volunteer on board the Andalucia Star when it was torpedoed three times by a German U-Boat submarine - U-107 - and sunk with three lives lost. 

Mrs L.A Green

I'll highlight more details about Gillian Ash's rescue story in future postings. But for the moment, I just want to say how pleasing it was to receive the following apt and timely note today from Jill McNichol.

  Jill kindly wrote:

"My father always phoned me and we would drink a toast today to the Andalucia Star, her brave crew and all who sailed on her during her many voyages. 

Join me in a glass of anything you like. 

All the best and cheers, Jill."

  Sixty-eight years ago, Jill was crossing the Atlantic on the Andalucia Star with her father, S.G. Bicheno. According to one account, Mrs L.A. Green, “an elderly stewardess”, switched on a red light on Jill's lifejacket before lifting the little girl into a lifeboat with other women and children. 

William Wheeler

Most of the lifeboats had already been safely lowered but, as another survivor Douglas Gibson later recalled, one of the lowering lifeboats went down bow first, throwing many of its occupants, including Jill (and also Gillian) it seems, into the sea. "The bar steward and an elderly stewardess were crushed between the ship and the lifeboat and killed,” said Gibson. 

  William Wheeler, the Andalucia’s lamp trimmer (the ship's lighting technician), heard little Jill’s cry for help and then spotted her red light switched on earlier by Mrs Green. Wheeler immediately dived into the water, swam through wreckage for a distance of 600 yards to Jill and supported her for 30 minutes before helping Jill into the lifeboat. 

"Daddy was getting into a lifeboat when the third torpedo struck," says Jill. "He was very lucky not to have been killed on the spot."

Toast

Early October is a poignant moment for Jill and possibly other Andalucia Star survivors and their descendants dotted around the world. "Daddy, every year when he was alive, would phone me on the anniversary of the sinking and we would drink a toast to the ship and her brave crew," says Jill.

  So, earlier today, rummaging inside a kitchen cupboard, I found an old bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand and two ancient dusty cans of Fosters lager. I opted for the bottle of wine and pondered how a single event nearly 70 years ago continues to echo through the decades and connect with successive generations.

  And I raise my glass to my own grandfather, Leslie Coleman (1906-81), who sailed many times as a crew member on the Andalucia Star - and I'll join you, Jill, in the toast you and your father so thoughtfully invoked: 

"To the Andalucia Star, her brave crew and all who sailed on her during her many voyages...we remember and salute you."

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, October 2013.

Evaporation of the east End spirit: East One film screening at the Barbican

East End people "evaporated" by regeneration, says filmmaker

By Paul Coleman

"The film laments the loss of East End people who have been evaporated by regeneration," says filmmaker Phil Maxwell, a long-term east London resident and former elected local politician.

  But East One (UK 2013), co-produced by Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim, might be in danger - unwittingly perhaps - of becoming seen as a prematurely nostalgic obituary to the spirit of working class east Londoners, generations of whom came from all over Britain and the Jewish and Bengali diasporas, to make Aldgate, Spitalfields and Whitechapel their home. 

  East One sets out as an engaging slice of East End nostalgia, driven by a pleading piano score - and tries to skim over the relentless outcomes of property developers and the 'buy-to-let' marketeers pricing these working people out of their family homes and traditional neighbourhoods.

Nostalgia over politics

But the grim reaper of 'Regeneration-Gentrification-Displacement looms beneath the surface of every nostalgic East One interview with some colourful local Aldgate characters. Sandra Esquilant, landlady of the Golden Heart pub off Brick Lane, heavily sighs: "The changes to this area haven't been for the best." 

  Maxwell and Hashim spent a year on this non-commercial "labour of love" documentary. Maxwell, a former elected local councillor, concedes East One avoids the politics of 'displacement' - namely, why elected councillors largely acquiesce in the displacement of local working people. 
  That's understandable, up to a point, but the nostalgia road taken leads East One perilously close to a triumph of pessimism over the East End spirit of optimism. The film pulls back from this peril through giving considerable free rein to the fighting poetry of local resident and poet Bernard Kops.
Maxwell and Hashim dwell generously on Kops as he spiritedly recites his Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East inside one of London's oldest and dearest synagogues, a passage helping to dispel much of East One's malingering, pessimistic after-taste. 

Filmmakers Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell spoke after East One (UK 2013) was screened at the Barbican as part of the Urban Wandering film season. 

Photo: © Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, 2013.

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, September 2013.

The Last Flare of Summer: The Thames Estuary, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

A Final Summer Flare

By Paul Coleman

Becalmed. 

Serene.

Mistily surreal.

Like teal blue silkened lava.

The Thames Estuary, determinedly unhurried, ebbs and flows at Westcliff-on-Sea.

And sun-baked, friendly people sizzle along this esplanade.
Paddle, promenade and soak up a final flare of summer balm.

Under a vast, wide blue Essex sky.
Before tomorrow's advancing Autumn shroud falls on the river
Concealing a vast blue Essex sky. 

© Words and Photos, Paul Coleman, London 2013

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, September 2013

Birthday, World Premiere, Mnemonic Suite Op.21, David Aprahamian Liddle, St Michael's Cornhill, Jamaica Wine House, Pasqua Rosee

A Liddle Treat 

Today (Monday, 2 September) marks the thirtieth year that I have been 21-years-old, writes Paul Coleman.

As a birthday treat to myself, I padded along Cornhill to St Michael's Church in the heart of the City of London - the capital's financial district - to enjoy the world premiere of David Liddle's composition, the Mnemonic Suite Op.21. It's a soulful and imaginative piece of music for organ, performed for the first time ever by the virtuoso Liddle himself (above, blue shirt). 

   Liddle's Suite is based on the eight Gregorian Psalm Tones - and its varied textures and moods brushed and blustered the air amidst St Michael's aisles, pillars and pews.

Coffee scorned

To keep the 'firsts' mood going, I'm now happily reflecting on Liddle's music in the Jamaica Wine House, a favourite City bankers' 'watering hole' right next to the church in St Michael's Alley. 

  Shall I order a coffee in a pub? Why coffee? Well, during the Jamaica Wine House's original incarnation in 1652, Pasqua Rosee, a servant of a wealthy English trader in the Levant Mediterranean area, became the first person to sell coffee to Londoners.

 'Coffee, it'll never take off in London,' said the sceptics, pouring scorn on Rosee's hot, thick liquid. 

Allez Alley

Historical records fail to regale what happened to Rosee down St Michael's Alley. Although Rosee disappeared, the Jamaica Coffee House became one of London's earliest and most famous coffee emporiums. Coffee, aided and abetted by sugar, took over London.

  The Jamaica Coffee House became a renowned meeting place for people engaged in England's vast trade in African slaves, a vicious enterprise that engulfed Africa and Caribbean sugar plantation islands like Jamaica - and enriched many powerful men in the City of London. 

   No, no coffee. It'll remind me too much of the wretched aspects of the City of London's history.

Instead, I'll have a birthday beer, please - and raise my glass to Rosee, St Michael's and to the creative force that is David Liddle.

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, September 2013


© Words & Photos Paul Coleman 2013