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Hatfield rail crash jurors urged to be unemotional

Financial Times: August 31 2005
By Nikki Tait, Law Courts Correspondent

The health and safety trial arising from the Hatfield rail disaster reopened yesterday with jurors urged to put aside any emotional response to the accident in which four people died.

"You must be careful to put emotion on one side," Mr Justice Mackay told the High Court jury as he began summing up evidence in the case, which opened in late January and involved charges against five senior rail executives and Network Rail, previously Railtrack. "What is needed is a clear, cool assessment of the evidence before you," the judge advised, although he acknowledged that aspects of the case might have left them feeling angry.