Charges ruled out for Paddington crash

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has advised that no charges should be made over the Paddington rail crash, in which 31 people were killed.

The CPS says it has told the British Transport Police that further investigations would not be justified.

The service has investigated the training of the driver of one of the trains involved in the accident two years ago.

They also looked in to the actions of staff in a signal box and the track and signal layout in the approach to Paddington station in west London.

Martin Mimms, a spokesman for the Paddington Survivors Group, said : "I think survivors were prepared for no charges to be made. They are not interested in retribution."

The official report by Lord Cullen into the October 1999 tragedy made it clear that the driver who passed a red light outside the station was not the primary cause of the collision and that senior management was guilty of "serious and persistent failure".

The CPS said in a statement that it had received independent advice from two barristers, including a QC, and had considered evidence from the Cullen inquiry and the police "very carefully, entirely afresh and without any preconceptions."

"It concluded that even if British Transport Police obtained the evidence given to the Cullen inquiry in a form admissible in a criminal court, that evidence, alone or added to other evidence BTP had obtained, would not be enough to bring proceedings against any person or company for manslaughter."

The decision covers senior executives at Railtrack as well as the company itself, which recently went into administration.