It's time for the talking to stop and the action to begin

At least 30 people lost their lives and more than 160 were injured when a Great Western high-speed train running from Cheltenham Spa to Paddington was in collision with a Thames Train going from Paddington to Bedwyn, in Wiltshire.

The Government reacted swiftly. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced an immediate public inquiry. "There is an investigation under way by the police and the Health and Safety Executive and there will be a public inquiry. We will get to the bottom of everything that happened in this tragedy," he said.

His comments were immediate and sincere, but how sure can we really be that the Government will get to the bottom of what happened in this incident?

British Transport Police have confirmed that they were conducting a criminal investigation at the crash scene.

They will send a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, who will decide if charges on corporate manslaughter are relevant. It sounds good, doesn't it, and gives hope to the victims' families. But don't be too optimistic.

As today's Oxford Mail investigation proves, there is a distinct lack of legal clout to back these strong and comforting words.

The families of those who lost their lives in the Southall Rail crash will tell you that.

Justice Scott Baker said this at the end of the court case after the Southall crash: "There are many who say that the present state of the law is unsatisfactory and that the present obstacle to prosecuting large corporations for manslaughter should be removed. "If the law is to be changed, it is up to Parliament to do so. The Law Commission recommended legislation over three years ago but nothing has been forthcoming."

For things to truly change for the better, we require a level of truth and honesty that is more highly regarded than power and money.

The first question we pose today is whether there really is an honest will to unravel the awful story behind what happened at Ladbroke Grove. We ask this on behalf of the family and friends of all those who were killed or injured in the Paddington disaster and the countless other people who have died in similar so-called accidents over so many years.

We say "so-called" with great care, because we remain far from convinced that the incident is viewed by the nation at large as an accident.

Many ordinary people who have no experience in the law - and some who do - have uttered the word "criminal" in angry and frustrated outbursts.

They really do believe that it is incomprehensible and "criminal" that we cannot travel on public transport in this day and age without taking our lives in our hands. Millions of words have been written already and countless promises made by the many organisations who have responsibility for rail travel and safety.

Anyone with any sense realises that our privatised railway system is in an awful mess. The vast volumes of evidence of poor practice, near misses and previous tragedies provide inescapable evidence of this.

But forces which are more powerful than the ordinary man and woman in the street are at work, and it is a national scandal. These forces are called power, profit, politics and vested interest, and Britain is riddled with them.

Careful analysis of everything that has been said by those in official positions so far has achieved nothing. That's absolutely nothing to allay fears that our railway system is being crucified by the rush for personal and corporate profit.

Have no doubt that this addiction to money and power has had a detrimental and dreadful impact on health and safety. It does not take a wizard to work out that profit - which is so highly praised and merited by the City - has become a curse in the workplace.

Anyone in any job in any village, town or city in this country knows that health and safety and training are things which go by the board or are seriously compromised when the drive for profits and savings is on.

Nothing will change until those who hold the power and the money are rammed into line by powerful legislation leading to corporate and personal prosecutions. In March 1993, four teenagers died in a canoeing tragedy off the Dorset coast. What seemed at first to be a tragic accident turned out to be a crime.

That crime made history because Dorset Police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to treat the incident from the outset as a crime.

The subsequent trial saw Peter Kite, the managing director of OLL Ltd - the company responsible for the outdoor activities centre which arranged the children's trip - facing four manslaughter charges. His company was also convicted of corporate manslaughter charges and fined a total of £60,000.

More importantly, Kite was sentenced to three years in prison. This was reduced on appeal but he did serve 14 months in jail. What started as an accident ended up as a proven crime.

In 1995, a fascinating draft Bill was drawn up by the Law Commission.

That Bill is unveiled in full in this newspaper today. What it proposes is a new offence of "corporate killing", to reflect genuine corporate liability, rather than requiring the prosecution to prove liability against an individual with whom the company would then be "identified". For the purpose of the corporate offence, a death should be regarded as having been caused by the conduct of an organisation if it is caused by a failure in the way in which the corporation's activities are managed or organised, to ensure the health and safety of the people employed in or affected by those activities.

The report gives the hypothetical example of a lorry driver, employed by a company, who causes death by dangerous driving in the course of the company's business. This would not, in itself, involve a management failure incurring corporate liability, but the company might be liable if the incident occurred because the driver was over-tired as a result of excessive hours, or the driver worked long hours to earn overtime and the company had no adequate monitoring system to ensure this did not happen.

The new corporate offence would be one of last resort, available only when all other existing sanctions seem inappropriate or inadequate.

For some strange reason, this eminently brilliant draft legislation - which would frighten the living daylights out of those running big corporate organisations - has not become law. What is especially concerning is that its existence has barely gained a whisper among the millions of words already written and spoken about the Ladbroke Grove incident.

What has also not been said too openly is that the first interim report into the Ladbroke Grove crash actually says that the Health and Safety investigation seeks to answer three main questions.

These are:

*Why did the accident happen? *What remedial action needs to be taken to prevent a further accident?

*Does what was done - or undone - merit further enforcement action, including prosecution?

The report adds: "A prosecution could be taken under the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, or if there was evidence of gross negligence, the Crown Prosecution Service could be asked to consider a charge of manslaughter, which is outside the scope of the charges that the Health and Safety Executive is empowered to deal with." Curiously, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, the Transport Minister, addressing the House of Lords on Monday, chose not to mention that the authorities at present conducting the inquiry have barely enough teeth in their mouth to nibble, let alone bite.

What he did do was explain the likely cause of the crash.

He said: "We now know, subject to final confirmation, that the Thames train passed through two cautionary yellow signals and then a red signal before travelling a further 700 metres into the path of the Great Western train. "Three times a warning should have sounded and three times the Automatic Warning System, which would stop the train if not cancelled, appears to have been overridden.

"The reasons may never be known, since the Thames driver was among those killed. But the black box which has now been recovered from the front of his train may help us.

"However, the Chief Inspector of Railways has said that whatever the individual actions or omissions, these should be considered as tragic factors symptomatic of more general problems - in the organisation, culture and systems - which should together constitute an effective safety regime. "Ministers are minded to transfer the main functions of the Safety and Standards Directorate out of Railtrack in order to ensure public confidence that there is no conflict between safety standards and commercial interest."

Forgive us, but being "minded" to do something doesn't actually mean they will.

He added: "We shall consider carefully where these functions are best located to ensure greater coherence on safety. If we need to legislate we shall do so.

"My Lords, the lasting legacy of this awful accident at Paddington, the outcome of all the urgent action now in progress, must surely be a more open, more responsive culture of safety across our whole rail industry. "We owe the victims and their loved ones nothing less, as I am sure your Lordships will agree."

More of us than their Lordships will agree, but we - and they - will want more than that.

We want to see the Government's teeth bite, and bite hard. The House of Commons is in recess at present but when it returns on Tuesday, surely it would not be outside their wits to dust off the draft Bill on corporate killing as a marker for all companies everywhere that skimping on safety and not protecting the ordinary man or woman in this country can be punished by fines and imprisonment? We've heard many fine words and sensitive statements, but the actions which really need to be taken seem, as ever, to be a million miles away.

Last night I talked to Carolyn Langley, who lost her daughter Claire in the Lyme Bay disaster. When she saw the pictures from Paddington she wept.

She told me: "I said, 'It's happening all over again, time and time again'. Nobody, absolutely nobody is prepared to stand up and say, 'I am responsible for that'.

"Life goes on after incidents like this for everyone who isn't involved, but for those of us who lose their loved ones, we have to live with it for ever. When the initial shock and sadness is out of the way in incidents like this, you get angry. You want someone to pay. "At the end of the day, though, does anyone really care about ordinary people?"

Come on, Mr Blair, listen to the voices of your people. Give us a law on corporate killing which will force a quantum leap forward in health and safety and restore the public confidence which has been blown to pieces.

Story date: Thursday 14 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.