A Fatal Accident Inquiry will be helf after Network Rail was fined close to £7million for the failings which led to a fatal train crash.
In August 2020 a ScotRail service derailed near Stonehaven after hitting washed-out landslide debris during heavy rainfall.
Three people - driver Brett McCullough, 45, conductor Donald Dinnie, 58, and passenger Christopher Stuchbury, 62 - were killed in the crash while the other passengers were all injured.
Network Rail admitted on Thursday to a number of failings which led to the derailment.
It admitted it failed to ensure, so far as was reasonably practical, that railway workers not in its employment and members of the public travelling by train were not exposed to the “risk of serious injury and death from train derailment” as a result of failures in the construction, inspection and maintenance of drainage assets and in adverse and extreme weather planning.
Read More: Network Rail fined £6.7m after admitting fault in Stonehaven train derailment
On Friday Network Rail was hit with a £6.7m fine by the High Court, reduced from £7m to take into account the guilty plea.
After sentencing it was announced that a Fatal Accident Inquiry will be held, to examine the full circumstances surrounding the deaths, identify the lessons that can be learned and help to avoid such incidents happening in the future.
The families of the deceased were informed of the plan to hold an FAI.
Speaking after the sentencing, Debbie Carroll, who leads on health and safety investigations for the COPFS, said: "Network Rail’s failings led to the deaths of Brett McCullough, Donald Dinnie and Christopher Stuchbury and lifelong consequences for those who survived.
“The tragic loss of these three lives has had a terrible impact on families and friends and our thoughts are with them and those who were injured at this difficult time.
"This prosecution is the culmination of a highly complex and thorough large-scale investigation by Police Scotland, British Transport Police and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) under the direction of the Procurator Fiscal.
Read More: 'Another disaster waiting to happen' warning as Network Rail admit Scots crash fails
“There have already been a number of lessons learned and industry wide changes made following this incident and the statutory safety investigation conducted by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch.
“To further serve the public interest a Fatal Accident Inquiry has been instructed to examine the full circumstances surrounding these tragic deaths, putting all relevant information into the public domain and help avoid such an incident happening again in the future.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel