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London Underground have been ordered to cough up nearly £10,000 after a protective barrier flew off a train carriage and hit commuters. Three women at Mile End station where hit by the 30mph flying piece of canvass and wood, two in the face and one was left suffering from a cut eye and two-inch gash to her head. The defendants pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety law following a prosecution by the Office of Rail Regulation, fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £4,017.48. One of the women is suing Transport for London. Mike Strzelecki, the Tube's director of safety, said about 7,000 barriers had been fitted to 600 trains in 1999 after passengers had been killed falling between the carriages. He said: "We detected there was a faulty barrier and we failed to remove it promptly and efficiently. If things had gone slightly differently we would have removed that barrier and the accident wouldn't have happened."
Internal report
An internal report found the canvas screen, which has two wooden vertical poles attached and is fastened by four bungee ropes, was seen partly dislodged at Leytonstone. An effort was made to remove it at Stratford. A breakdown in communication allowed the westbound train to continue, resulting in the women being struck at Mile End as it sped off at about 30mph. The train was not taken out of service until it reached Tottenham Court Road more than an hour after the problem was first spotted. Two similar incidents then occurred on the Central line - one in November at St Paul's, and one at Holborn in January, when a passenger was struck. The internal report found 45 reported defects with the barriers between 1997 and 2010 - more than half on the Central and Piccadilly lines. It found there was no formal method of replacing the bungee cords.
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