'Evidence of sabotage' claim in rail crash
Maintenance company Jarvis says photographic evidence appears to back its claim that sabotage may have caused the Potters Bar rail crash.
The firm in charge of line maintenance made its announcement as trains began running through the station following the May 10 crash which claimed seven lives.
Jarvis's statement to the London Stock Exchange refers to photographs of the points taken immediately after the accident.
It says they showed that in addition to two sets of nuts having been removed, the inner nuts on the points had been adjusted in the 48 hours before the accident.
But Jarvis states: "No maintenance had been carried out on the points in the previous 48 hours."
In an interim report into the crash last week, the Health and Safety Executive said the detached nuts probably caused the crash in which the last coach of a West Anglia Great Northern train derailed.
The HSE added that it had not found any evidence of vandalism or deliberate damage, although neither could be ruled out.
Jarvis says: "It is our belief that it is too early to judge the ultimate cause of the accident, and that sabotage cannot be discounted."
However, rail industry experts have said the chances that vandalism was to blame were "less than 1%" and Railtrack said it was confident that a "unique set of circumstances" had caused the crash.
