§ Mr. David Marshallasked the Secretary of State for Transport how many accidents have occurred at unmanned railway stations in Scotland for each of the last five years; and how many of these have been fatal.
§ Mr. David MitchellAccidents that occur on the railways in Great Britain are reportable to the Department as prescribed by Statutory Instruments. This does not require the railways to declare whether or not an incident occurred at a manned station or otherwise. Accidents resulting in minor injury and not involving the movement of a train, eg. slipping, tripping, falling accidents, are reportable by bulk return only as numbers with no details of location.
57WOver the last five years, the accident data for movement and non-movement accidents on the Scottish region of British Railways are:
1983 1984 1985 1986 11987 Fatal 2 2 3 2 1 Major 6 1 3 5 11 Minor 327 402 422 477 362 1 Including September. Only one of the fatal accidents occurred at a station; this was manned. The Scottish region has advised that, for 1987, none of the 11 major injuries reported occurred at unmanned stations but 32 of the 362 minor injuries did so.
§ Mr. David Marshallasked the Secretary of State for Transport how many cases of assaults at unmanned railway stations in Scotland have been reported for each of the last five years; in how many of these cases prosecutions have followed; and how many convictions were obtained.
§ Mr. David MitchellI understand from the British Transport Police (BTP) that the total number of assaults on trains and stations in Scotland, and the number of persons prosecuted, were as follows:
Year Number reported Persons prosecuted 1982 269 137 1983 323 169 1984 362 157 1985 352 139 1986 411 165 Separate records of convictions, and of the number of assaults at unmanned railway stations in Scotland, are not maintained by BTP.