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| Network Rail to plead guilty over Potters Bar crash | Network Rail to plead guilty over Potters Bar crash |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| Network Rail has admitted health and safety failings over the 2002 Potters Bar crash, in which seven people died. | Network Rail has admitted health and safety failings over the 2002 Potters Bar crash, in which seven people died. |
| The company has said it will plead guilty to charges which were brought over the condition of tracks near the station in Hertfordshire. | The company has said it will plead guilty to charges which were brought over the condition of tracks near the station in Hertfordshire. |
| Six passengers and a pedestrian were killed when a train from London to King's Lynn derailed on 10 May 2002. | |
| An inquest last year concluded that a points failure was to blame. The company will be sentenced next month. | |
| Peter Palfrey, chair of the bench at Watford Magistrates' Court, said: "In this case we have decided that the charge is so serious we cannot give punishment at this court." | |
| 'Almost unrecognisable' | |
| Speaking outside the court, a Network Rail spokeswoman said the firm was pleading guilty because it had assumed all of Railtrack's responsibilities and liabilities when it took over the company in October 2002. | |
| She insisted that travelling by train was now safer than ever. | |
| "The railway today is almost unrecognisable since the days of Railtrack and the Potters Bar tragedy. All of the recommendations made by both the industry's own formal inquiry and the health and safety investigation have been carried out." | |
| The Office of Rail Regulation launched proceedings over alleged breaches of health and safety law after the inquest into the crash last year. | |
| Six passengers - Austen Kark, Emma Knights, Alexander Ogunwusi, Jonael Schickler, Chia Hsin Lin and Chia Chin Wu - were killed in the crash. | |
| The seventh victim, Agnes Quinlivan, was walking nearby and died after she was hit by debris. | |
| More than 70 people were injured when the 1245 West Anglia Great Northern service from King's Cross to King's Lynn crashed as it reached Potters Bar station. |