Son of rail crash victim criticises knighthood

A GRIEVING son spoke yesterday of his disgust that the former boss of Network Rail was knighted on the same day the company accepted responsibility for a crash which killed his mother.

George Masson said the honour should be immediately stripped from Sir John Armitt, who was chief executive of Network Rail (NR) at the time of the Grayrigg disaster in Cumbria, which killed Mr Masson’s mother Margaret and left 86 injured, 28 seriously.

Sir John was knighted at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.

At the same time Mr Masson had travelled from Scotland to Lancaster to hear Network Rail lawyers, admit responsibility for the disaster for the first time in court..

Mr Masson, 62, an engineer, from Castlemilk, Glasgow, said: “He doesn’t deserve it. The safety was non-existent. They were putting cash before lives. He must have known what was going on with the corners they were cutting. He was the top man.”

Sir John, who left NR six months after the Grayrigg crash, received his honour for services to engineering.