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.

A furious 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 be willing to take up the case, because it carries the massive burden of establishing who was responsible for the crash and would have to be funded on a no win no fee basis.

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 this is a highly complex case that would not be well suited to a no win no fee agreement."

Neither Network Rail, nor Jarvis, have admitted responsibility for the tragedy on May 10 last year, which killed seven and left 76 injured, some of them requiring long-term care. 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 (HSE) and British Transport Police inquiry is 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 added that solicitors would not risk taking the families' 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.

May 29, 2003 13:30