No wonder the railways are in such a state...

[Train-a-Mania]

He was lucky and everything, but his father is perfectly correct. There should be better protection.

It's his fault for getting drunk and wandering onto the tracks. Why should the rail networks have to accomodate for every drunk who has the idea to wander on railway tracks?

[Dave]

There's a law saying that the rail company is liable even for trespassers? It's an idiotic law!

Welcome to Britain. Here, if I set a trap that injures a burglar, I can technically be charged with Grievous Bodily Harm.

So it's not just railways.

While I agree with you, Purno and Train-a-Mania, you're looking at it from a totally moral viewpoint.

"A drunken idiot on a railway line!? It's his own fault!" etc. And quite fairly too, but the law doesn't see it like this.

While trespassing on the railway IS a criminal offence, I have been led to believe that trespassing on private property is NOT a criminal offence.

Even so, a railway offers a duty of care to anyone on it's property - trespassing or not.

jpmaster is, from a legal standpoint, 100% correct. If he died because of that incident, there would have been a storm.

With jumpers (suicidal people) they're exonerated of blame because they're going there to do that anyway, but if someone wandered onto a rail line - sober or drunk - they will be held responsible for any damage caused.

As for damage he may have caused (Criminal Damage can only be applied to physical objects), he may well have been exonerated of that due to his extreme insobriety (which can be used as a defence in cases of Criminal Damage).

As I understood the case, he was simply fined for trespassing on the railway (which IS a criminal offence, remember) and costs

[orudge]

I reckon there should perhaps be signs every now and then telling idiots to stay off the railway, but I don't believe it should necessarily be Network Rail's responsibility to wall off the railway or anything. If people are going to be stupid and sleep on railway lines (drunk or not), they arguably deserve what's coming to them.

[Purno]

Like any drunkard would actually read such a sign...

[Brianetta]

The duty of care is to livestock, too. Farmers along railway lines understand this. If they have an animal that dies, they lose money. However, if they can somehow drag it onto the railway line and then claim a train hit it, they are compensated. There have been cases of live animals driven onto the track, and one case I heard of where a sheep's carcass was catapulted onto the track from clear across the other side of the boundary.

In most cases (catapults aside), damage to boundary fences is obvious. Unfortunately, unless it can be proved that the farmer was the one who did the damage, it remains Network Rail's responsibility to maintain an effective boundary against livestock.

Personally, I think the law should be changed (no duty of care to trespassers) and locomotives should simply be fitted with cowcatchers and allowed to plough through anything daft enough to be on the line, without liability.