Families who lost loved ones in the Potters Bar rail crash have again been refused legal aid for their compensation claims.

It is the second time the Legal Services Commission (LSC) has thrown out the application.

Louise Christian, the solicitor representing the families, said they would appeal the verdict in the High Court.

The LSC's refusal is a major setback in the families' fight for justice. Without legal aid it would be virtually impossible for them to foot the minimum £500,000 bill to fund any civil proceedings for compensation.

It is unlikely that any solicitor would take the case on a no win no fee basis because it carries the massive burden of establishing who was responsible for the crash.

Richard Miller, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, an independent organisation representing legal aid lawyers, said in recent years the Government had only provided legal aid for personal injury claims in exceptional circumstances.

"This is exactly the sort of case you would expect would come within the few remaining exceptions they have allowed," he said. "There is clearly a massive public interest in the matter being dealt with properly. The complexity, in terms of establishing negligence within the various organisations that run the railways, means that this is a highly complex case that would not be well suited to a no win no fee agreement."

Neither Network Rail nor Jarvis, the companies that run the rail network, have admitted responsibility for the tragedy on May 10 last year, which killed seven and left 76 injured. The Government is refusing to hold a public inquiry which would relieve the burden of proving liability from the families' shoulders until a joint Health and Safety Executive and British Transport Police inquiry has been completed.

An undisclosed offer from Network Rail to compensate families on a no liability basis was refused in August last year, mainly because it would be much less than if liability was proven.

Mr Miller said solicitors would not risk taking the case on a no win no fee basis because action would have to be brought against both Jarvis and Network Rail.

"If the lawyer brought proceedings against both companies and the court decided one was liable and one wasn't, then the lawyer would only be entitled to the cost of the case against that defendant. The losses on the other action would mean it was just not possible to run the case economically."

An interim HSE report released today (May 29) is expected to rule out sabotage or vandalism as the cause of the crash, a theory put forward by Jarvis, the contractor employed to look after the track.

-From The Barnet Times

May 30, 2003 16:30