"An accident waiting to happen" - The Croydon Tram Derailment

It’s Hannah’s birthday 🎉 and in true Sinister South fashion, we’re celebrating with one of the most devastating public transport disasters in British history.

This week, we’re in Croydon. In 2016, a packed tram derailed at high speed on a tight curve at Sandilands. Seven people lost their lives. Dozens more were injured. But behind the headlines was a tangled mess of missed warnings, ignored safety recommendations, and a network that left no room for human error.

It’s a story about a driver, a system with no safeguards, and a question that still hasn’t been answered: how did no one see it coming?

We talk through the crash itself, the trial that followed, and why Rachel will never again tempt fate by saying anything positive out loud. There’s also a detour into the very specific kind of rage that comes from being tailgated by an undercover BMW-driving policeman on the A20.

Sources for this episode include: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Croydon_tram_derailment
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/19/driver-of-croydon-tram-in-fatal-2016-crash-cleared-by-old-bailey-jury
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/07/croydon-tram-crash-caused-by-driver-falling-asleep-and-speeding
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66323171
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65906151
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-182017-overturning-of-a-tram-at-sandilands-junction-croydon

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

Transcript

Ep 15 - Croydon Tram

Hello. Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm Hannah.

And this is the Sinister South podcast, a podcast all about true crime in the south of London. Nice and succinct. Yeah.

Not fucking about. Not fucking about. We're in it.

We're just going for it. My watch has just told me that my moon is in Capricorn or the moon is in Capricorn. Oh, raise your standards.

Okay. Thanks, watch. I love it.

I love that. That is the sort of woowoo that you have in your life. We've said this before.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't even know what this app is.

And it doesn't I don't think it comes up on my phone. It literally just is like my watch is like, I must have set something up. Every now and again.

It's like, and I look and I think, oh, it's time to stand. And then I'm like, Oh, no, apparently the sun is rising in the West. I love it.

I love it. How are you? Yeah, fine. Really braindead today.

To be honest, it's been a week. It's been Yeah, just really full on the last couple of weeks have been really, really full on. Yeah.

So but it is, or it will have been a day of one's birth. It's my birthday. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Hannah. Happy birthday to you.

Yeah. How how are you feeling about being having another birthday? Well, I mean, considering the other day, I had to text you and ask you, am I turning 36? Or am I turning 37? And then immediately answered your own question. I bumped into my friend Debra.

And we were chatting about it. And she was like, how old you gonna be? And I was like, I don't know. And I, I know we could have just me and her both terrible at maths.

I just worked it out. I was like, I know who's just who's had the birthday already. Yeah, I was I was lax and replying to you though.

I think that was because I was packing up from a hollabobs. Yes. But yeah, no birthday.

Time. Lovely, lovely stuff. Center of attention.

Yeah, went to the Grayson Perry exhibit at the Wallace collection last week. Wednesday. And it was really good.

And I just want everything to be painted in the brightest colors in the world. I'm walking around being like, I want all of this in my house. Yeah, so I've done some nice things already.

By the time this goes out, I've done some more nice things. We're going to the pub. We are.

We are. This is why if you see us rushing through this. Yeah.

It's because I just speak at the speed of light. I've been given a rare afternoon off to go and sit in the pub without my children. So that's exciting.

Yeah, lovely time for me. Very good. Very good times for me.

Yes. How are you dear? I'm all right. I am back after my week away.

I also have to do a caveat that I've just done it again. But I ironically called them holly bobs. It's the worst thing.

I just have to ignore you now ignore it. I know. But when we'll was record when we was editing the last one where I said holly bobs.

He came he stopped recording is stopped editing came into the room where I was putting the children to sleep. interrupted my rendition of Paddington Bear to say that he was going to forward the episode to Daniel Fox so that he could rip the shit out of me for calling it holly bobs. So yeah, there's here's another one to add to the collection.

Yeah, no, I'm back from holiday. The holiday was lovely. Although I think we need to, there's a there's a small element of I basically, I need to explain to the listeners that I should always listen to you because you're always right.

I am completely I don't. I've never been wrong. I know.

And I really should have learned by now. It's been a long time and I still haven't learned and it's it's only on me. But yeah, so for those of you who listened to last week's episode, I at the beginning, I'm mucking I'm mucking aboutingly.

No, Jesus. I jokingly. God, honestly, it's been a week.

I jokingly said, Oh, yeah, I'll be back. I'll be there. But that was lovely.

It was a great holiday. No, we don't do this. Hannah has got a major thing about we do not preempt the future.

And I have to this week, I've had to agree with her. Because it turns out that the caravan park that I was staying in on the Isle of Wight, the day I thought it was the day after it wasn't it was the same day that we left. Oh, geez.

Later on in that day, a light aircraft crashed into the holiday. It's absolutely insane. And I can do a slight chortle because no one was hurt.

Thank God I did double check this. It looks it looks it looks terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But apparently, no one was hurt at all. The people in the plane, no one on the on the site. But it was the where it came down was where we would walk to go to where my parents caravan was.

So it was very much like, Oh, okay. So yeah, Whitecliffe Bay on the Isle of Wight. But no, it was, um, it was a great holiday.

But I'm just never going to preempt it. We don't say things were good until they've happened. I'm not gonna sit here and say, Oh, yeah, the best birthday ever happened.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, so you are you are right. And I apologise profusely. Good.

To all involved. Because it was probably my premonitions, or lack thereof that caused it. But no holiday was really nice.

Yeah, got to properly chill, which was good. Nice. Yeah.

And then this week has been back to reality with a bump. But it's right went to go and see my went to go and see my parents again. I hadn't seen enough.

No, my mum. So my mum, my mum works with me. But she then whenever it's like a holiday of any sort, she works with me but by looking after my children.

Yes. So I don't have to spend loads of money on holiday clubs. But yeah, we went down on Wednesday.

And as I was driving down the, the A20 on the way to Kent, leaving South London, but going further south, so I feel like that's all right. It's okay. We've not gone the opposite direction.

Yeah. I was driving along. And I just think the audacity of some people.

Okay, I really don't know this is gonna go right. So I'm driving minding my own business. And it's at that bit.

I'm sorry for anyone who doesn't know South London, but it's at that bit where they changed it to 40. And then changed it back to 50. Again, quite recently.

Yeah. So down past five ways. Yeah.

So I'm driving along. And there's all these signs up saying NPR and like, you know, all of this stuff. So you drive at the speed limit.

Now, I'm not like I am one of these people, I do not drive over speed limits, because I am afraid. Yeah. But well, I say I don't drive over them.

I drive over them by a few miles. Yeah, you know that there's like three miles. Yeah, exactly.

It's like, you know, it's a 50 zone. And I'm actually driving 54 miles an hour. Like, yeah, that's the sort of speeding I do.

But anyway, so I'm driving along. And I could look down at my speedometer when it changed back up to 50. And I was going a little bit over 50, maybe 52.

And there was this suddenly this BMW behind me and it was so far up my arse. No. And it's a two lane bit.

And I was just like, No, I'm just gonna stand my ground because I am driving at the speed limit. It is a speed limit. It's not I'm not on the motorway now where there's no cameras or anything like that.

It's not variable. It is it got a NPR 50 miles an hour. I'm going slightly over that you can just wait.

And then he carried on just like sat straight behind me. Like, no, it didn't flash or anything, but it was just like right there. And I kept looking in the rearview mirror, because it can get a little bit intimidating.

And I'm like, I've got the kids in the car. So I was like, right. And so then I was going to pull over to the other lane so that he could go on.

But there was a car right next to me that was basically matching my speed. So I'm like, I'm trying to I can speed up a little bit, but then it was almost like the guy next to me thought it was a game. So he was speeding up at the same time as I was Jesus man.

And I was just like, I feel very trapped here. But I'm just there's nothing I can do. I was like, there's nothing I can do.

I'm just gonna keep driving. It's fine. And I kept looking in the rearview mirror.

And then the guy behind me moved over as if he was going to undertake when the car next to me moved. And I was like, fine, you do that. Yeah, you do.

Yeah. And, and I may have flipped in the bed, because he was annoying. And then what I thought was really funny was I laughed because he couldn't get past the car.

Yeah, in front. So we had to come back behind me. And I laughed and was just like, no hard serves you right blah, blah, blah.

And we're driving along. And then the fucker put some blues and twos. He flipped off a policeman.

I flipped off a policeman. But he shouldn't be driving aggressively. driving aggressively.

No blues and twos. And it was obviously an undercover police. Yeah, he was not in a police car.

It was just a normal BMW. I thought to be fair, no offense to any BMW driving Trevor's, but I just assumed it was a BMW driving ticket. Yeah.

I had no blues and twos up until that point, like right up behind me. And then it was literally because he just couldn't be bothered to wait until we got to the 70 mile an hour, like the end of the national speed limit. But I could have sped up and I could have got past the guy who was next to me and all of that, flashed it on so that the car next to me basically like put his foot on the brake, because he was obviously a bit like, Oh, what's going on? So he's gone so that I could come over.

Yeah. But then he immediately turned it off again. Yeah, of course.

And then obviously, I was like, the audacity! How do you think you are? You are not on a call. Because if you had been, it would have been on much earlier. Like, you are driving so far, like up my arse that like, I can pretty much see what your face looks like.

Yeah. I was just like, ah! But then there was also the moment where like, my heart fell out through my arsehole. Of course it did, because you've just flipped off a policeman.

And you're absolutely certain you're going to jail for 25 years now. And I was just like, but there was me in my head being like, it's ANPR and they're going to catch you. And then I was like, but hang on! They are the they.

They are the they. But also I was like, so you would be fine if you made me speed. I got flashed by the ANPR because I'm speeding and you're a police officer.

Or they might have arrested me! Fucking rude. Absolutely diabolical. I was fuming.

It was fine. I then continued on my journey. And it was uneventful.

It was just that, like, four minutes of interaction. I was just like, I don't understand what's happening. What's going on in my life here? How have I got here? I think you do feel like it's such a square because I'm like, no, actually, I will stick to the speed limit.

God damn it. But yeah, so if Mr. BMW driving policeman who followed a silver car on the A20 on Tuesday is listening, that was uncool. Yeah.

Very uncool. Not cool, dude. Not cool.

The kids were just like, what's going on? Nothing. Your mother's in trouble with the law. We're fugitives now.

We're swearing at the filth. So yeah, that pretty much sums up my week. Oh, how funny.

Oh, mate, well, no. Actually, it could be really scary, to be honest. I think I'd be freaked out.

It was a bit. It was just, I just don't like anyone aggressively driving. I mean, it's ridiculous.

Yeah, because you do just sort of go like, I don't, you're unpredictable. And like, I understand that I might not be very cool, but I'm quite happy to not be cool. If I'm abiding by the law and safe.

Yeah. I am not what one would call a boy racer. Yeah.

Oh, really random. Sorry. Sorry.

It's ADHD, bro. You know what's happening. Did I tell you that I went, I got a cab the other week, and the cab driver knows my brother? How funny.

How did you even work that out? So we were, he picked me up to take me to the expo that I worked. Yeah. And we were driving down the Blackwall Tunnel.

And like every taxi driver up until the start of April, was complaining about that. Oh, I can't believe this should be £4.50, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we were chatting and he was like, oh, and he mentioned that he had another car like this was his Uber car.

Yeah. But then he had another car that was like, he was like, oh, yeah, it's a bit of a it's a it's a bit of a boy racer car. And I went, oh, my brother's right.

And he was like, Yeah, yeah. But like, I'm into like, you I don't know if you know him, but like, I'm into JZM. And I was like, JZM? I can't remember.

Anyway, Japanese drift cars, basically. Tommy is sorry, I've said his name now. My brother is going to hear this and just be like, what the fuck is she on about? Why are you talking? Why are you doing? Anyway, he's got one of these Japanese cars.

And I said, Oh, my brother's got one. Yeah. And he was like, Oh, where does your brother live? Like, is he local? Because apparently, the community is quite small in South London.

And so I was like, Oh, well, he used to live in Lewisham. And now he lives out in Kent, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he asked me what his name was.

I said it to him. And then he's turned around and gone, Blue Chaser. Yes.

And he was like, got a girlfriend, blonde hair. I was like, Yeah. And he was like, Yeah, yeah, no.

The last place I saw him was when we went down to Lakeside and we were doing drifting round. I was like, what on earth is this? So yeah, he was telling me all about my brother. It's very bizarre.

Anyway, there we go. Ah, strange. Very strange.

The world is too small sometimes. Yes. Terrifying.

Yeah. Anyway, there you go. That's enough drivel for you to start it off.

Okay. So yeah, I've got a story for you today. Tell me, tell me, tell me a story.

Well, I decided, again, I always say this for every single fucking episode I do now. It's a bit different this way. It's not.

It's still crime. But it's going back to our... Basically, guys, I'm getting incredibly upset that none of my episodes have reached the dizzying heights of download numbers as The Moshness. So I have decided... One episode to rule them all.

I decided that I'd do another travel based... Just to see if it's that. Is there going to be any slag involved though? There isn't slag. No.

Well then. Um, there is a lot of Croydon. She's cheeky.

She's cheeky. We like it. But yeah, no, I thought I'd tell you, um, about the Croydon tram derailment.

I've had to say that really carefully. Trevors, we're really having to concentrate on this one because Rachel's can said Troyden Cram. And now we've been calling it the Troyden Cram.

Just for shits and gigs. And we really can't. Can't call it the Troyden Cram.

Not the whole way through this, call it the Croydon. Oh no, that was right. We should.

Croydon tram. There we go. But yeah, so if I pause before I say it, it's because of exactly what Hannah's just explained.

So yes, the Croydon tram derailment. I thought we'd do a little foray into this because it's quite interesting. It's another one.

It is similar to the Martianess, but because of the fact that it all just seems to be. The moment there are large companies involved, people can just get away with people dying on their watch and it's fine. So yeah, so it's still not fun.

It's not fun. But yes, as per usual, all of the sources will be in the show notes. But yeah, I will crack on.

It was still dark outside when tram 2251 pulled away from the new Addington terminus just after 6am on Wednesday the 9th of November 2016. Rain drizzled over South London as commuters boarded the early service heading towards Wimbledon, a journey that usually took 40 minutes across the Croydon tram link network. It was a familiar route, one that cut through Croydon town centre and linked up with National Rail at East Croydon station, and then carried on westward to Wimbledon, stopping through suburban neighbourhoods along the way.

At the controls that morning was Alfred Dorris, a tram driver with nearly a decade of experience. He joined the network in 2008 and was known for his steady professional approach to his job. By all accounts, Dorris had an impeccable driving record, no formal safety incidents, no performance concerns, and he was used to early shifts, navigating the quiet, low-light hours of the morning commute.

That morning, Dorris was operating Route 3, the new Addington to Wimbledon service, one of the network's primary lines. After passing Lloyd Park, the tram entered a long, straight stretch of track through three back-to-back tunnels, which was about 500 metres of near-total darkness. It was a section of the route that offered very few visual cues, particularly in poor weather.

With no changes in speed or direction required, the stretch could lull even experienced drivers into autopilot. At the end of the tunnel lay the Sandylands Curve, a sharp left-hand bend with a 20kmph speed limit. Navigating it safely required a dramatic reduction in speed and full awareness of your location.

But that morning, Alfred Dorris didn't slow the tram in time. As the vehicle exited the tunnel and approached the curve, it was still travelling at approximately 73kmph, more than three times the permitted limit. There was no automatic braking system installed on the tram, no speed limiter, no driver vigilance monitor to alert him, no on-board system to intervene.

The tram entered the curve at full speed, and then it derailed. The front of the tram lifted off the track. The vehicle overturned, tipping onto its right-hand side and sliding for approximately 25 metres along the track bed.

The metal screeched, glass shattered and passengers screamed. Inside the carriages, chaos erupted. Dozens of passengers were thrown violently across the tram, with no seatbelts, no safety restraints and no time to react.

Some were hurled from their seats, others collided with metal poles, walls or each other. Several were thrown through the tram's windows, which shattered on impact. The tram's design, its lightweight body and relatively thin glass, was never built to withstand a high-speed overturn.

People were flung out into the dark and rain, sustaining catastrophic injuries. Survivors later described being tossed around like rag dolls. They spoke of a sense of weightlessness, of having absolutely no control, of knowing something had gone terribly wrong but being helpless to stop it.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, it was silent. The tram had come to rest on its side, wedged between track and tunnel wall. The power was out, passengers were trapped in the darkness, bleeding, injured and terrified.

For seven of them, that morning commute would be their last. 61 out of 19 of them seriously. What happened in those few seconds would mark one of the worst disasters in modern British tram history, a tragedy that was both sudden and, as would later be revealed, entirely avoidable.

When the news of the crash broke, few could grasp the scale of it. For a network with a near-spotless safety record, it seemed unthinkable. But the loss wasn't abstract.

These weren't just numbers, they were people. Neighbours, commuters, parents, sons, daughters. The youngest of the victims was 19-year-old Dane Chinnery.

He was just starting out in life as an apprentice for Croydon Council. He was described as being full of energy, always smiling, always joking. He boarded the tram that morning on his usual route to work.

His friends said he had a big heart, a great sense of humour and loved his football. 19's so young. It's not any age, is it? So young.

He was sitting near the front of the tram, exactly where the overturning force was strongest. Dane was thrown from the carriage and killed instantly. Dorota Reinkiewicz, 35, was a mother of two young children.

Originally from Poland, she had made South London her home. She worked as a carer, but that morning she was on her way to a job interview. She never made it.

Dorota was thrown from the tram when it tipped, her death left behind a husband and two little girls. Mark Smith, also 35, had only recently become a father. A local lad from Croydon, he'd spoken with friends just days before about how excited he was for this new chapter.

Fucking hell. That Wednesday he got up like he always did, early, reliable and ready to work. Mark was another who didn't survive the derailment.

In an instant his future and the future of his young family was gone. Philip Logan, 52, was a grandfather who'd swapped his shifts as a bricklayer that week so that he could make time to help with family errands. The simple favour, the kind of thing people do without thinking twice and that decision placed him on the 6am tram.

Donald Cullet, 62, was described as a quiet man with a gentle soul. He lived nearby and often used the tram to get to appointments or to the shops and he was remembered for his tightest cuddles. Philip Seary, 57, was known as a gentle giant and a devoted husband and father of three.

His daughter spoke later of a man who was dependable, humble and deeply loved by his family. And finally, Robert Huxley, 63, a retired electrician whose career spanned 40 years. He was a local resident, well liked in the community and described as loyal, dependable and totally committed to his family.

All seven were killed when the tram overturned, all ejected from the vehicle through broken windows. The force of the derailment combined with the tram's outdated window design meant that there was nothing keeping them inside. None of them stood a chance.

But the tragedy didn't stop there. 61 others were injured with 19 suffering serious or life-changing injuries. Some were trapped in the wreckage for hours, others walked away, one survivor suffered a spinal injury, another lost vision in one eye.

Several passengers developed PTSD. Many couldn't bring themselves to board public transport again. One woman said it took over a year for her to be able to travel alone.

Another said every loud screech, every twist of the train made her heart race. They all boarded that tram expecting a normal commute and in less than 60 seconds their lives were upended. As investigations began and headlines faded, families were left grieving.

Many asked how something like this could happen on a service described as one of the safest in the UK. But the deeper they looked, the clearer it became. This wasn't an accident, but a preventable tragedy.

Now, when a tragedy strikes on public transport, our first instinct is often to look to the person behind the wheel. Who was in control? Were they distracted? Did they make a mistake? In the case of the Croydon tram crash, that person, as we've said, was Alfred Dorris. On the surface, Alfred Dorris was exactly the kind of driver you'd want at the controls of a 40-ton tram.

He joined the network in 2008 after starting out as a milkman and then a bus driver. The early start suited him because he liked to be home with his family by the afternoon and the routine gave him a structure to his day. After completing a 13-week training programme, Dorris became a fully qualified tram driver and over the next eight years he developed a reputation among colleagues as someone reliable, calm and competent.

As we mentioned earlier, he's had no history of safety incidents, no disciplinary flags and was widely regarded as one of the better drivers on the network. Wow. So, how did it go so wrong? Yeah.

That morning, the 9th of November, Dorris was on the early shift. It was a job he'd done countless times, but something changed. Alfred Dorris was knocked unconscious, thrown from his seat and he hit his head on the control panel.

When he came to, he was dazed, surrounded by the wreckage and fully unaware of the full scale of what had just happened. In the days that followed, Dorris was arrested, as is standard in any fatal accident and later released on bail. But the public wanted answers and many looked to him.

But what investigators found painted a much more complex picture. So, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch of the British Transport Police, it's a lot of words in that, they concluded that Alfred Dorris had likely experienced a temporary loss of awareness in the moments leading up to the Sunderlands Curve. They said it wasn't recklessness, it wasn't negligence, but potentially a micro sleep.

What? Now, this has been described as a few seconds of involuntary shutdown likely caused by fatigue. Is this what you have? Apparently, I think this might be what my brain blips are. Fucking hell, don't drive a tram.

No, I won't. It's fine, I wouldn't drive a tram anyway. I just wouldn't.

As a principal or? No, just no one would, no one in their right mind would let me. When Dorris snapped back to attention, it may have been too late to slow down. He may also have become disoriented, unsure of where exactly he was on the line, possibly even mistaking the direction of travel.

The tram network at that time had no driver vigilance system, no GPS triggered alerts and the tunnel that they'd just been through, bearing in mind it was 500 meters of pitch black, basically, had offered no visual cues to help him reorientate, especially if he has had one of these moments, these brain blips as I call them. In short, there were no safeguards in place in the tram at all to protect passengers from a single moment of human error. And Alfred Dorris alone in the cab in the dark with a packed tram behind him had no backup.

In the aftermath, Dorris withdrew from public life. He suffered himself from severe PTSD and he stopped working. At one point, he even lost contact with his wife and young daughter as the trauma overwhelmed every part of his life.

I know. The guilt, like. It's one of those like, you know, we're talking about car accidents and like, well, car driving and being like, people who aggressively drive and whatever, like even if you're not, even if you're doing everything right and you get into like a minor fender bender, you feel guilty about the fact that you've got, what did I do? So when it ends like this, like Jesus Christ.

During his trial years later, spoiler, he said, it's not just the families that were affected. I've had to live with this every single day. But it was not just Alfred Dorris who's involved in this.

This is a bit where it might get a little bit, I'm not going to use the word boring, but there's just, I need to explain how the trams work and who owns bits of them to make sense. So the Croydon Tram Network is owned by Transport for London and it's backed by a company called Tram Operations Limited, which is a very inventive name for said company. And they are a subsidiary of First Group.

So while TFL is ultimately responsible for the system's infrastructure and safety oversight, the Tram Operations Limited or TOL was directly in charge of the day-to-day running of the service, which included the management of drivers, any sort of training that they had to go through, their shift patterns. So TFL own it, but TOL run it. TOL run it, exactly.

So this division of responsibility will become central to the investigation as we go through. As this emerges, that neither organisation had acted to address any known risks on the network, which we'll get into in a little bit more detail in a minute. The Office of Rail and Road, or OR, as they're known, O-R-R, they launched an investigation into the tram derailment.

And in 2022, so this happened in 2016. Yeah, it's taken a while. It's taken a while.

I'm not very good at maths, but that's longer than it should have been. And yeah, in 2022, it brought charges against authorities under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. So that included TFL as the owners, TOL as the operators and DORIS as the driver.

Right, okay. TFL was charged with failing to ensure the safety of passengers. TOL was charged with failing to manage operational risk and DORIS was charged personally and accused of failing to take reasonable care whilst behind the... Okay.

So not quite a reckless drive. It's not reckless, but yeah, failing to take reasonable care, which I mean, I suppose is, it kind of is reckless endangerment, isn't it? But just under more corporate language, I suppose. Yeah.

The trial began at the Old Bailey in 2023. Families sat through every single day. Journalists took notes, survivors gave testimony and Alfred DORIS appeared visibly distressed.

He spoke about the day of the crash for the first time, telling the court, I'm deeply sorry I wasn't able to do anything to stop the tram from turning over. He described his mental health struggles in the years since, the post-traumatic stress, the breakdown of his marriage and years of isolation. The prosecution argued that DORIS had a duty of care and failed to fulfil it.

That he should have been more alert, that regardless of fatigue or confusion, the final responsibility sat with him. But the defence pointed to the wider context and actually pointed the finger more at TOL and TFL than they did to DORIS. And again, we've said this, I've said this already, but they kind of came back to three core areas that should have been looked at and that weren't.

So the fact that on none of the trams on the network, none of them had automatic brakes. Right, okay. So there was nothing that would have fail-safed.

It is all being run. There's no plan B. There's no plan B. There was no fatigue assessment of drivers and there was no system to catch any of the human error. Now, these systems are apparently, they are used on tubes and apparently they are used on the DLR.

I would imagine, I don't think they're used on things like buses, but I could be wrong. But then you have a, I don't know. Look, I don't think he, I don't think DORIS got up that day and was like, I'm going to fucking kill people.

Yeah, I'm going to turn the tram over. Yeah, but you do have a responsibility as a driver, to assess yourself for capability. How many times have you kind of driven and stayed the night somewhere and had a drink and then woke up the next day and gone, oh, I shouldn't drive yet.

I'm not saying he was drunk or anything, but that kind of thing. If you're knackered, if you're like, I'm fucking, I'm so tired. Don't get behind, you wouldn't get behind the wheel of a car.

Don't get behind the controls of a tram. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I hear you.

There is a personal responsibility, surely. Yeah, and I think that that's the thing. We can, personally, I see that there's failings on all three parts.

I don't think you can discount. If you have the technology to be able to put safeguards in place to stop or to mitigate against human error, why don't you? Why haven't you? That's a fair, that's a fair point. But it's still, it's your, I think the other thing that they're pointing at.

Sorry, but if I woke up really tired, got behind the wheel of a car and crashed into something and killed someone. Yeah. That'd be, I would be.

Yeah, it's on you. It's nothing to do with your ABS or your like. Exactly.

Yeah. It's, yeah, it's an interesting point. Yeah.

I just think it's, you do have a duty of care. You know what you're getting up to do. You know what your job is.

Yeah. I understand if it is something like a micro sleep or like there was a case. Now, I don't know if it was some sort of stupid April Fool's that I've fallen for.

Oh God. But like the woman who was found to be not guilty of reckless driving because it had been proven that she'd sneezed. No, that's a real thing.

Yeah. But like, so I suppose if it's something like that. I don't know about that specific case, but that is a real.

Yeah, you can't, I'll just pick it up and move it. But yeah, like you can have. We should just point out that a picture just fell on my head.

You can't just in the middle of a sentence to a non-visual medium, just go, just pick that up and move it. Sorry. Yes, a picture fell off the wall and has landed on Hannah's head.

But yeah, like you do have a duty of care. You do have all of that. But I think if it is something like, I don't know, I feel like if there was a medical condition, like if he'd had some sort of seizure or no, no, no.

But like you could have like a medical issue. Yeah. It could, something could happen to you behind the wheels of something or behind the controls of something.

You could pass out. You could have suddenly like really low drop in blood pressure. You know, those things are that happens.

And that is uncontrollable. Exactly. And I kind of feel like maybe I'd have more sympathy if there'd been a, I have sympathy for the man.

Like no, as we said, no one. I don't think he woke up that day and was like, ha ha ha. Exactly.

And he must feel horrific and the survivor, like survivor's guilt and all of that must be awful. Unimaginably painful. But it doesn't mitigate the fact that it was still your responsibility and that is your job.

Yeah. But I think it's just interesting as I was saying with the, with the woman who sneezed and being got out of reckless driving or whatever because her eyes shut for that split second and she was incapacitated for that split second. I think that's what they're trying to get out with that micro sleep.

Yeah. Is it something that's just sort of, you've gone. Yeah.

I mean, I suppose I've been in meetings before. Everyone will have done it. Where you suddenly have just gone, hang on, what? Yeah.

Like, so I can see it happening. I can see it being a human reaction or just, but yeah, it just feels, it feels odd to say that there's absolutely no. It's unintentional, but it doesn't mean that it's.

It's unintentional fault, but it's still fault. It's still fault. Yeah.

Anyway, the jury deliberated for just under two hours and they came back with the verdict of not guilty. Okay. Everyone, Alfred Doris was acquitted.

He wept as the verdict was read. And while he walked free, the two organisations behind the tram service were not so lucky. Okay.

Both TFL and Tram Operations Limited had already pleaded guilty to health and safety offences. In July, 2023, the judge handed down a £14 million fine, £10 million to TFL, £4 million to Tram Operations Limited. The judge described the crash as the result of an accident waiting to happen.

One caused not by a single mistake, but by a series of systematic failures. Right, okay. For many of the victims' families, the outcome was a punch to the gut.

Some felt that no one had truly been held accountable. The driver had walked away. The companies had paid their fines and carried on.

Danielle Wynne, whose grandfather, Philip Blogan, had died in the crash said, this verdict feels like a stab in the chest. It feels like we've lost them all over again. Others questioned why the inquest had only returned a verdict of accidental death originally, despite clear evidence of corporate failings.

And there were calls for further investigations, for stronger regulation and for someone, anyone to take real responsibility. And this is understandable. Like they lost loved ones.

They wanted justice. But the truth of the tragedy isn't as simple. As we've said, Alfred Doris didn't wake up that morning intending to cause harm.

He was a man with an impeccable record, working in a system that had seen warnings ignored, fatigue dismissed, and safety systems left undeveloped. In the end, he became the face of a failure that ran far deeper than any one individual. Yeah.

When something as devastating as the Sandylands derailment happens, the natural reaction is shock. But what investigators and the public will come to realise is that this wasn't an accident. It was, it wasn't just a tragic accident.

It was one which could easily have been and should have been prevented. So, I'm going to talk about the layout of tram tracks now. Yeah.

So, the approach to the Sandylands curve, as we said, is deceptively calm. So after the Lloyd Park stop, the tram enters this long straight section of track where nothing much happens. Yeah.

It runs through three back-to-back tunnels, which, as we mentioned earlier, is about 500 metres in total. There are no turns. There's no signals.

There's no changes in the environment whatsoever. Just tunnel walls, concrete, darkness. So it's been described as a low-stimulus environment.

And this is said to be for a fatigued driver. Yeah, really dangerous. That's why motorway driving is so dangerous, right? Exactly.

Then, with very little warning, the route hits a really sharp left-hand curve and it drops down to 20 kilometres per hour. And apparently this is one of the slowest parts on the entire network. There's nothing to signal it.

There's no signage. There's no warning lights. There's no in-cab alerts to prepare the driver in advance.

It's just an abrupt expectation to know exactly where you are and to therefore slow accordingly. But as far back as 2008, which was actually the year that Doris first became a tram driver, this very problem had been identified. Oh, shit.

So that year, Jim Snowden, then the chief engineer for Croydon Tram Link, formally raised concerns about the Sandylands curve. In a technical paper and at industry safety meetings, he warned that the combination of a long straight stretch with poor visibility followed by a sudden tight curve was a serious hazard, especially in low-light or wet conditions. He specifically recommended improved signage and advanced warning for drivers.

And this was seemingly kind of, the response went like this. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, we'll get on that.

Fuck. Nothing happened. The issue was then also mentioned at a light rail operators committee meeting in 2010.

Wild. Really exciting. But then again, it was quietly dropped and it didn't stop there.

Before Jim Snowden had mentioned his concerns, in 2006, a low-speed derailment at Phipps Bridge, which is elsewhere on the tram link network, should have prompted a full safety audit of similar curves, but it didn't. In 2014, Tram Operations Limited began a fatigue management study, an internal review of how driver schedules, shift patterns and overnight work were impacting performance. And the early results were really worrying.

It became clear that fatigue was a real issue, particularly for those who were on early morning shifts. But again, no formal policies were implemented. And by 2016, the study had effectively been shelved.

And then just nine days before the crash, it nearly happened. On the 31st of October, 2016, another tram on the same route, driven by a different driver, approached the Sandylands curve too fast. Passengers on board described the tram tilting violently, with people clutching at the brace poles and bracing for what they thought was going to be a derailment.

One passenger tweeted afterwards, the tram just flew around the bend. I genuinely thought we were going to come off the tracks. And they almost did.

But that incident was never formally reported, not by the driver, not by controllers, not by the company. Oh my. Because by that point, Tram Operations Limited had developed what's known as a blame culture.

So this is, they apparently had a workplace environment where reporting any error could land you in massive amounts of trouble. So you could either be disciplined, suspended, sidelined, and drivers were actively discouraged from admitting any mistakes. Management didn't want a pile of safety reports.

They didn't want the paperwork. They wanted smooth operations and plausible deniability. And so this near miss on Halloween, the same year, was quietly swept under the rug.

And this culture of silence meant that safety risks quite regularly went unchallenged. They've got blood on their hands. Even when passengers were frightened, even when staff were aware of the hazards, no one wanted to be the one that raised the alarm.

The RAIB, which I believe is the Rail Accident Investigation Board, report published in 2017, so the year after the derailment, would later say it plainly. I quote, this was not an unpredictable event. It was the result of multiple opportunities missed.

And while TFL, who owned the network, was kind of still the one that got the most blame and the biggest fine, the day-to-day running of services was toll. And each side, so TFL and toll, apparently had both assumed that the other one would be managing the risks so that they didn't need to. In the end, no one managed them.

Yeah, I was going to say, fucking hell. So when Alfred Doris lost situational awareness in that tunnel, whether due to fatigue, a micro-sleep, disorientation, or anything else, there was nothing to catch him. No safety net, no second chance.

The result was the derailment that claimed seven lives. And the evidence would show that it didn't come out of nowhere. It came from years of overlooked warnings, missed opportunities, and organisational complacency.

The Croydon Tramlink was owned by TFL, but the operation was toll. And in theory, both parties were responsible for ensuring the safety of the service. By the time the trial reached court, much of the public outrage had shifted focus.

So it started off being very much aimed at Doris. And by the time it had come to trial, it was about a much bigger question. Yeah, of course.

Half full of cracks, been allowed to carry on unchallenged. And once it failed, who, if anyone, would be held accountable? Many of the families of the victims hoped that the courtroom would bring clarity and closure, but it ended up just raising just as many questions as it answered. So the most serious charges, that of corporate manslaughter, were ruled out early on.

Instead, the Crown opted for health and safety violations, focusing on duty of care and failure to control foreseeable risk. The charges centred around a failure to implement basic safety controls, not responding to previous warnings about the Sandylands Curb, not addressing fatigue risks and not acting on near misses. The aftermath of the verdict triggered widespread reflection on transport safety and public accountability.

So many campaigners have called for more than financial penalties. They want cultural change, operational transparency. Yeah, what's the good of a fine if you're not going to put anything in place to stop it happening again? It's a complete slap on the wrist.

That's ridiculous. So yeah, and they also want reform. Public confidence in the tram system has been severely shaken and questions were raised about how the same network could still be running without visible changes in oversight.

Why weren't protections already in place? Why did it take seven deaths for any action to follow? In Croydon and across London, the impact rippled far beyond the rails. Memorials were held, families lobbied MPs, the Transport Select Committee issued inquiries. But what people wanted most, clear and lasting reforms are still a work in progress.

In the wake of the crash, a number of safety measures were finally introduced across the tram network. So by 2019, automatic braking systems had been installed to prevent overspeed incidents. Trams have been fitted with driver vigilance devices designed to detect inactivity or signs of fatigue and speed restrictions have been painted clearly onto tracks and signage has been improved.

There have also been changes to shift patterns and staff fatigue protocols. And in theory, these reforms have been designed to catch the kind of laps that occurred on the 9th of November 2016 to give drivers backup and to ensure that no one was kind of left alone in the dark. The Light Rail Safety and Standards Board or LRSSB was created to provide clearer guidance across all UK tram systems, not just the one that runs in Croydon.

So there's also ones in Blackpool, in Manchester, in Sheffield. They're all over the place. For the first time, there has been a framework enabled to ensure consistency and accountability in the light rail sector.

But for many of the families, this all still felt like too little, too late. Years have passed, but the legacy of the Croydon tram crash is far from settled. Each November, tributes are paid to those who lost their lives.

Dane, Dorota, Mark, Philip, Donald, Robert, Philip. Their names are not forgotten. Memorial plaques and services serve as a painful reminders of the cost of complacency.

Survivors still live with physical and emotional trauma and some are continuing to push for a public inquiry because that hasn't happened yet. And others are focused on campaigning for better safety in light and light rail systems across the UK. The crash changed the conversation around the tram network and light rail transport in general.

And it forced open discussions about fatigue, oversight and corporate responsibility. And while changes have been made, the core question remains, why did it take a tragedy for change to come? And how can we make sure it never takes another one? And that is the story of the Croydon tram derailment. See what I mean? It's a bit of an odd one because it is, again, it's like the Martianess where it's just corporate manslaughter.

It's not murder. It's corporate manslaughter. It's not even corporate manslaughter because it's health and safety violations.

But seven people lost their lives and, you know, 19 with serious, life-changing injuries. It's insane. It is.

It's absolute madness that you can have things the size of TfL or Firstlink, which is, whatever, Tramlink, that kind of can just allow this shit to happen, pay a fine, carry on. Like, because in the same analogy as you said earlier, right? If you woke up one morning, really tired, you got behind the wheel of a car, God forbid, and you caused an accident and someone died. That responsibility is you, you alone.

That's what's happened. If I was tired, got behind the wheel of a car, was driving somewhere and none of the road markings had been updated, there was no lights, there was, then that is different again. But I still had a responsibility to myself to not be tired.

But I also might, the accident might not have happened if it had been well lit. Exactly. An area with lots of markings and warnings.

Yeah, if you had that support around you to prevent an accident in the first place. But you think that like, even if that, there would be some comeuppance. Yeah, there would be someone held to account.

Yeah. And it just feels like in this case, you've got seven people dead, 19 whose lives are going to be irrevocably changed. And it is just, I mean, 14 million pounds isn't a small chunk of change, but for organisations the size of this, it's a drop in the pond.

And you just think that like, amongst those people, there are parents, there are sons, there are grandparents. It's just, it's just horrible. It's awful.

It's just horrible. But yeah, it's something that I found really interesting at the time that when it happened, I remember it being a big topic of conversation. And I was, when I went to go and research it, I was quite surprised at the fact that so much of the information I found was from fairly recently.

And it's because of the trial. But you think it was almost 10 years. Yeah.

Yeah. Nine years ago. Nine years ago it happened.

And it is like, I'll put pictures up on the Instagram when this one goes live, but the crash site, the curve is quite like, it's not like a small little bend. It's like, it's a tight curve. And the idea that you're going to go from like 70 kilometres per hour in the tunnel down to 20.

Yeah. With very little warning. It's just a bit like.

Yeah, it is mad. It is mad. You think there'd be a big flashing thing being like, hey guys, slow down.

Exactly. Like you get it when you get, you know, whenever you're driving again, like you come to a sharp bend, you've got all those warning, like, you know, the signals all the way up. Yeah, exactly.

You have it to prevent you from just going straight off a bloody. But yeah. And I can imagine as well in a tram, it's not exactly like, it's not just turn a wheel and it moves.

It's going to be a lot more complicated. I also didn't realise how much control of the tram. I know that's going to sound ridiculous.

No. The driver has. But I suppose because I'm thinking.

It just feels like a much better model to have DLR style things where it's automated. It's controlled. Because that's the thing.

It's controllable by a human, but it is controlled by programming. Yeah, exactly. And it's like there's, you know, human beings are quite famously fallible.

Yes, very. And it does seem bonkers that in, like this country has had so many different forms of transport network. Yeah.

Like and they've, it just seems like why wouldn't there be those things in place? Because I swear there's automatic braking in tubes. I swear there's automatic braking on trains. There's the DLR, as you've said, everything's run off a computer programme.

Yeah. But it's like, and this is because South Londoners are not allowed the tube. We can't be trusted, according to Bojo.

Yeah, we're not allowed the underground. We're not allowed the underground. We're going to have it in one place and we're going to make it really inconvenient to get there.

Exactly. You can have these light remote controlled things. You can have the tram, which apparently has no safety features.

And you can have the DLR, which I mean, admittedly, is quite fun to drive. To drive? Yeah. Well, do you not get on the DLR and pretend to drive? Like you always go to the front.

Do you not? Oh, it's my favourite thing to do. I love it. Whenever I have to get on, I went to go and see a client over in East London a couple of weeks ago.

And it was very much like, because it was middle of the day, there were no kids around. So it was like I could go sit at the front and just sit there and be like, oh, driving the train. Wow.

Wow. Do you know what? You've got to find the joy in small things. Okay.

But, um, but yeah, like it just, it beggars belief that you are, we're in a situation where it so easily could have been prevented. The fact that you've had a near miss. Yeah.

Like weeks before, a couple of weeks before, like. It's just, it's just crazy. But I mean, well done, mate.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure where Mr. Doris is now.

I hope he's all right. Like I do feel for him. I know I've been quite thingy.

No, I don't think you have been quite thingy. I think it's a very valid point. It's exactly like I agree with you.

Yeah. I don't think it's fair to say that he had absolutely no culpability. I think that once you dig a bit deeper and see what the corporations ignored, I can, I can kind of understand why the blame's been put more heavily on them.

But I don't think it's fair to say that he had absolutely no culpability. Because if the other thing that I kept thinking about when I was reading it was he's had an impeccable safety record. He's driven that route multiple times.

Yeah. So if you've driven a route multiple times. You know it.

So why? There's gonna be like, so unless you are completely, you have fallen asleep at the controls and then you've suddenly gone, oh shit, where am I? Whose responsibility is that? Well, exactly. But that's what I'm saying. It feels, it feels very much like to kind of say, to absolve him of any responsibility.

Does feel. Feels a bit. I could understand why the families of the deceased would be outraged at that.

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But yes.

Ugh. Well now, there have been things put in place. But yeah, I think it's just how they then roll that out across every network and all of the different areas that the tram runs in.

But yes. Have you ever been on a tram? I mean, I don't know if I've been in one in this country. Yeah.

But I did. I went with a friend of mine years ago. We went to Budapest.

Yeah. And we were like, we'd really fucked up. Like we went off season.

Like hardly anything was open. Oh God. We'd been really stupid.

It was like a ghost town and all this. But we also, it's really hilly, if I remember correctly. And we were like, wanted to do sightseeing, wanted to go to places, but we were like, I don't know.

We're also two kind of, two girls that are very inept at reading maps. And so we were like, what would it be? Oh, we'll just get on the tram and we'll go from one end of it to the other. Yeah.

And then back. And like, look out the windows. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we did it. And like, and it started off, we were fine.

We got seats and we sat there and it was quite busy. People on and off and like, and all that. And then we're like, as we're getting further and further out, it's also, we've timed it terribly.

So it's getting darker. Oh God. Not dark, dark, but it's getting darker.

And then we're looking out the windows and all of a sudden, we're just going through this bit. Like there was no one else on the tram and it's just us and the driver. And we're going through this bit.

It was just gravestones. Like they must be, it must be the masons, like where they made just piles and piles and piles of headstones being, some being worked on some like, as in like they're halfway through being made and all this. And then just loads of stray dogs and we're like, and it's getting darker and darker.

At one point, the driver stopped the tram and came and spoke to us and was like, are you all right? In my very broken English, like, what are you doing? It's like, as if we'd gone to like, like no tourist comes here. Why are you here? Oh, this is how we die. Yeah.

We're all holding on to each other really tight. Oh bless you. Oh wow.

Yeah. And Budapest is hungry, isn't it? So is that, that's near Transylvania? I don't know why you'd set us up like this. No, that's Bulgaria.

That's Bulgaria, I think. Anyway, no, but I was going to say, I would like, I can imagine it probably is if you get out into sort of like countryside and it's a bit dark and it's like, oh, okay. What are we doing? What is happening? Just loads of stray dogs following the tram.

We're going to, this is, we're going to die. Oh mate. Yeah, no, that's scary.

I've been on the tram in, I've been on the Croydon tram. I've not been to the Sandylands one, but I went, I had a bit of a mad moment when I was a younger person and decided that I should go to college in Croydon. Yeah.

When? I did like two weeks there and then decided I'd go back to my school, sixth form instead. Okay. Yeah, I decided I wanted to be like really cool and edgy and I wasn't going to go to the school, sixth form.

Right. So I enrolled in John Ruskin College, which is in Croydon. And yeah, I lasted two weeks before I was like, this is too long a journey when my school was five minutes walk away.

So I decided to go back to school. But yeah, no, I, so I used to have to get the tram to college in the morning. And yeah, it's a very bizarre form of transport.

I couldn't quite work it out. I was like, it's a bit like a bus, but it's smoother than a bus. And then the seats are much higher up.

Like it's weird. Like all the seats were on like little ledges. I mean, this is a long time ago.

So it's probably changed. And this is the most boring conversation we've ever had on this podcast. No, it's not.

It is, we've got to stop talking about it. I was talking about trams. But yeah, no, I have been on the Croydon one.

Not the case, but like, have you ever been on a tram? Write in if you've ever been on a tram. No, come on. Let's move away.

No, no. I just meant like, have you been on the Croydon one? No, I don't think I have. Although Richard might tell me different.

Yeah, potentially. Maybe you've got to see a football somewhere or something. Yeah, no, I just find them quite an interesting, I just find them bizarre that they also go on the same road as cars.

That just weirds me out. I'm like, you're either a track based thing or a wheel based thing. What are you doing here? I don't understand.

Out of context. Exactly. But yeah, so that's... There we go.

Like I said, well done, mate. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

I was about to say the Troyden Cram then. Yeah, the Troyden Cram derailment. Croydon Tram derailment.

So I suppose all that's left now is all the nice bits. Indeedy. So we've got a website.

We have. SinisterSouthPod.co.uk Got an email address. SinisterSouthPodcast.gmail.com Try it, see what happens.

I've got an Instagram. We do, Sinister South Pod. We've got TikTok.

Sinister South Pod. We've got the Facebook group. Trevor's Unite.

Run by the lovely Lou. Hi Lou. I'm just going to keep doing that because we've done it every week.

That's it now. It's part of the lexicon now. It is.

That's it. That's all the nice bits. That's all the nice bits.

I think so. You can come and... We will get to the Q&A. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That you've popped on that Facebook group. So if anyone does have any questions that they want to ask us, then please do add them there. For sure.

Yeah, I think that's it. We still haven't got the bloody... I've given up. I don't care anymore.

I don't understand what anyone's problem is. I did listen back to our ads though the other day. Oh God.

They are quite funny. They're quite good. Have they ever been anywhere? No, no, no.

They've been edited. I've got them. I just need to pay some money to some people to put them up.

Don't I say, do you want to be taken up the shard? You do. You do say, do you want to be taken up the shard? I ask about whether or not people glare into the eyes of a fiberglass cat. Yes.

Well, look, that was in the heady days of the first few records. I know, I got really excited about it. But yeah, no, I will force William into doing the Patreon episodes because it's getting ridiculous now.

I give up, yeah. Husband, person, thing. But yeah, lovely tremors.

Let's go to the pub now. Let's go to the pub now. Cool.

So we're going to bugger off now. So we love you. Love you.

See you later. Bye.