An English based railways firm has been ordered to pay the largest fine on record for a conviction under health and safety at work legislation in Northern Ireland.

Mowlem Railways was fined a total of £75,000 at Belfast Crown Court on 10 March 2004 for breaches of health and safety law.

It follows the death of Terence Lowry, a 39-year-old railway worker from Doncaster during night-time work being carried out to renew track on the Belfast to Bangor railway line in February 2002.

During his summary, the judge referred to the system of work as being a ‘shambles’ and said that such failings ‘must be punished with a proper degree of severity’.

Mr Lowry was in the leading cab of a rail vehicle being used to transport scrap rails when it crashed into another rail vehicle, a tamper, which had been parked on the line.

A colleague in the cab with Mr Lowry was also injured and two fellow workers who were in the rear cab of the scrap rail train were badly shaken.

The company pleaded guilty to charges of failing to maintain a safe system of work, failing to ensure that work equipment was properly maintained and failing to ensure that a suitable assessment of the risks associated with the work activities had been carried out.

(MB)