GWR fined £1m over train passenger’s death in Bath

Tess de la MareWest of EnglandPA MediaBethan Roper was returning house from a Christmas purchasing journey when she died on the practice on 1 December 2018A main rail operator has been fined £1m for breaching well being and security legislation when a younger girl suffered a deadly damage after putting her head outdoors a droplight window.Bethan Roper, 28, was killed on a Nice Western Railway (GWR) practice close to Twerton in Bathtub on 1 December 2018 when her head struck a tree department.Regulator the Workplace of Rail and Highway (ORR) prosecuted GWR on the grounds it was conscious of the problem of droplight home windows, and had not but applied steps recognized in a threat evaluation undertaken two months earlier than Ms Roper’s dying.GWR was fined and in addition ordered to pay £78,000 after pleading responsible to 2 counts of breaching well being and security legislation.Richard Hines, ORR’s chief inspector of railways, stated: “Our ideas stay with the household and pals of Bethan Roper.”Her dying was a preventable tragedy that highlights the necessity for practice operators to proactively handle dangers and act swiftly when security suggestions are made to maintain their passengers secure.”Ms Roper, from Penarth in Wales, labored for the Welsh Refugee Council, was a Unite union convener and in addition chaired the Cardiff West department of Socialist Celebration Wales.She had been returning house from a Christmas purchasing journey in Bathtub and was intoxicated when she boarded the practice, an inquest held in 2021 heard.PA/Cardiff College of JournalismBethan Roper labored for the Wales Refugee Council Investigators instructed the inquest a yellow warning label above the window bearing the phrases ‘Warning don’t lean out of window when practice is shifting’ was an inadequate deterrent.Ms Roper’s dying echoed an identical incident in 2016 during which a passenger died close to Balham, south London, ensuing within the Rail Accident Investigation Department (RAIB) issuing security suggestions in Could 2017.GWR didn’t produce a written threat evaluation till September 2017, however that evaluation discovered droplight home windows to be probably the most important passenger security dangers.The ORR discovered the evaluation to be inadequate and wrote to GWR about its considerations.Nevertheless the evaluation was not revised, and the actions GWR had got down to cut back the danger weren’t applied earlier than the deadly accident of 2018, the ORR stated.Since Ms Roper’s dying, measures have been launched throughout the rail business to stop passengers leaning out of droplight home windows.Trains with such home windows have since been withdrawn from service or fitted with engineering controls to stop home windows being opened whereas trains are shifting.The ORR stated it welcomed actions taken by GWR and the broader business to cut back threat.