LEWISHAM TRAIN COLLISION Driver Charged With Manslaughter

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28531, 10 March 1958, Page 6

LEWISHAM TRAIN COLLISION Driver Charged With Manslaughter

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, March 7.

A 61-year-old express train driver was alleged by the prosecution in court today to have crashed into the rear of another stationary train after passing two yellow warning signals and one red signal at between 30'and 40 miles an hour. The collision at Lewisham, south-east London, in thick fog during the evening rush-hour three weeks before Christmas, killed 90 people and injured about 150 others.

The driver, William Trew, a railway man for 40 years, was brought into a London court today accused of the manslaughter of the guard of the other train.

Prosecuting counsel said that the guard, Robert Reynolds, had been “chosen as a specimen of others for the purposes of the proceedings because the guard of the train would be among the first to be killed.”

Trew was allowed to sit during today's hearing. The prosecutor said that he was a sick man.

“No doubt he. feels his position keenly and no doubt if this case is sent for trial and there is a verdict of guilty there are many things for the learned judge to consider,” counsel said. He told the court that Trew, driving in thick fog and with a long, heavy train an hour late, passed a signal at Ted after passing two warnings—first a doubleyellow and then a yellow, each a quarter of a mile apart—at a speed of between 30 and 40 miles an hour. His steam train then crashed into the rear of an electric train which was rightly stopped at a later red signal. A summons alleging manslaughter was made against Trew following an inquest on the guard and other victims on December 31, during which many persons including the accused gavo evidence, counsel said. ® Thew had said in a statement that the brakes wfire “hard on” when the collision occurred. He could only see the signals when he was “on top of them.” The hearing was adjourned until March 25.