CHARFIELD RAILWAY DISASTER
ENGINE-DRIVER CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER London, November 20. As a sequel to the Charfield railway disaster on October 14, in which 14 lost their lives, Ernest Aldington, the engine-driver of the wrecked express, employed by the L.M. and S. Company for thirty-seven years, was charged with the manslaughter of Dorothy Burnell, the only one of the killed to be definitely identified.
The prosecution alleged gross negligence amounting to recklessness, because it was established that all signals were definitely at danger, and three distance signals. These safeguards had been overlooked. The public rightly expected some degree of safety during fog, and it was the driver’s duty in the event of signals being invisible, to reduce speed. Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, defending, intimated that the evidence of the driver and fireman was emphatically that they saw a distant signal in their favour.
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Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 50, 22 November 1928, Page 8
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141CHARFIELD RAILWAY DISASTER Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 50, 22 November 1928, Page 8
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