The lawyer representing the victims of the Potters Bar rail disaster has rubbished reports that Railtrack has made a £12million offer of compensation to her clients.

Louise Christian, of Christian Fisher Solicitors, confirmed she would begin investigating liability into the crash so that the crash victims can take Railtrack and Jarvis to court if they did not make an acceptable offer of compensation.

"They Railtrack have not made any offer," she said. "They might make offers which they think are appropriate but if the offer is insufficient we have to go to court. But we can only go to court if we can prove who was to blame."

The rail crash victims only have three years to bring proceedings over liability and Ms Christian is also pushing for the Government to call a public inquiry into the accident which claimed seven lives and left dozens injured on May 10 this year.

An investigation into the cause of the derailment identified a set of missing nuts as being the cause of the derailment. British Transport Police (BTP) still do not know the identity of five people seen working on the line 24 hours before the accident.

A Railtrack statement said that the issue of industrial liability could not be resolved until the investigation by the Health and Safety Executive and BTP had been completed.

"Some payments have already been made but this represents a small portion of what will be paid.

"No liability issues stand in the way of claims being lodged, considered and settled," it said.

September 30, 2002 18:30