Whistleblower silenced with £16,000 payout

From: Daily Mail

A Network Rail whistleblower was silenced minutes before an employment tribunal could hear her claims that safety records of several level crossings were falsified.

The Times reported that Maryanne Rosse, the former operations risk control co-ordinator for the company, received £16,000 in a deal banning public disclosure of her allegations.

In exchange for her silence, Ms Rosse’s agreement also guarantees her employment with the rail company for another year before she received a severance pay of £40,000.

In a witness statement submitted to Ms Rosse’s victimisation case at the London Central Employment Tribunal, it was alleged that the employee submitted a list to her superiors, claiming that in 2009 safety records for 13 level crossings in East Anglia were inaccurate.

The statement said that Ms Rosse claimed a crossing near Ipswich had been wrongly deemed as ‘compliant’ despite a close miss between a school bus and a high-speed train.

Ms Rosse flagged up her concerns, saying there was a great risk of such an incident happening again and there would be serious consequences if the company was aware of a near miss and had failed to act.

The known whistleblower claimed that Network Rail was ‘not comfortable’ with Ms Rosse being involved in an inquiry about the deaths of two teenage girls who did on Elsenham level crossing, in Essex, in 2005.

Olivia Bazlinton, 14, and Charlotte Thompson, 13,  were hit by a train as they walked across the tracks.

Ms Rosse gave evidence in a statement to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) in March about the deaths, where she said she was the victim of ‘bullying’ behaviour which forced her to ‘keep quiet’ about her claims.

She said: ‘I believe that contrary to their statements my employer did not value or welcome my actions as a whistleblower and that as known as a whistleblower (sic) with trade union affiliates they were not comfortable with me being in my role with the Elsenham civil case or any re-investigations and that is why they behaved in the way they did towards me to bully me into leaving my post and keeping quiet,’ the Times reported.

Network Rail told The Times that they had found no evidence to support her claims that level crossing reports had been falsified.

They had held an internal investigation into the list of 13 level crossings and found some discrepancies and an employee lost their job,

The told The Times: ‘Ms Rosse is a valued employee who did the right thing in revealing shortcomings within her department.

‘As a result of her actions, significant changes and improvements have been made.’

In February the ORR announced it was investigating an unseen report by Network Rail about the health and safety of Elsenham level crossing.

A risk assessment report from 2002 recommended gates should be locked when a train approached, but the gates were still not locking automatically in 2005, when the schoolgirls were able to cross the tracks, Sky News reported.

The ORR are reviewing the previously-unseen document.

Passenger Accidents at Stations Increase

The number of passenger accidents at railway stations increased last year, official figures showed today.

Eight passengers died in incidents at stations in 2010/11 compared with five in 2009/10, the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) said.

RSSB policy, research and risk director Anson Jack said: “Against a background of strong growth in passenger numbers, passenger accidents at stations have increased and the industry needs to identify means to achieve improvement in this area while maintaining safety improvements across the railway industry.”

In 2010/11, for the fourth year running, there were no passenger or workforce deaths in train accidents.

There was just one workforce death in 2010/11, when a worker died from a fall from height.

There were 208 suicides on the railways in 2010/11 as well as 27 deaths through trespass and four pedestrian deaths at level crossings.