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Judge gives Cambridgeshire County Council three years to pay its £6m fine after guided busway deaths




The judge passing sentence at Cambridge Crown Court in the guided busway case rejected Cambridgeshire County Council’s request for six years to pay its £6million fine – instead demanding it pays up in three.

The council pleaded guilty to serious safety failings following a long investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which followed the deaths of three adults and serious injuries to two children.

The guided busway in Cambridge Picture: Richard Marsham
The guided busway in Cambridge Picture: Richard Marsham

Judge Mark Bishop, who also ordered the council to pay more than £292,000 in outstanding costs, said: “I acknowledge the financial challenges that face the defendant. I don’t underestimate that.”

But he said the council had a turnover equivalent of more than £1billion per year and had set aside more than £18million in a reserve fund to cover legal risks.

Ben Compton KC, for Cambridgeshire County Council, asked that the authority be given six years to pay, adding: “It’s a council – these are hard times.”

But the judge rejected this and gave the council half that time.

He said the council had taken a “rigid and blinkered approach to safety issues” in its management of the Cambridgeshire guided busway.

He noted that the incidents spanned some 11 years, and that when the busway opened in 2011 the operating speed was to be 56mph, which he described as “clearly too fast a speed for buses to move in an urban or semi-urban environment”.

The judge paid tribute to the “dignity” of family and friends of those killed or injured who attended court.

“Nothing that can be said in court can take away the loss that you’ve suffered but I want to express publicly our condolences to the bereaved and also to wish you well for the future,” he said.

“And out of this case let us hope that nothing like this will happen again.”

Jennifer Taylor was killed in 2015 on the Cambridgeshire guided busway. Picture: Taylor family
Jennifer Taylor was killed in 2015 on the Cambridgeshire guided busway. Picture: Taylor family

Jennifer Taylor, 81, died in darkness at an unlit crossing at Fen Drayton Lakes after getting off a bus on 17 November, 2015.

On 13 September 2018, family man Steve Moir, 50, was killed after his bike struck a kerb amid heavy cyclist and pedestrian traffic, which caused him to fall into the path of an oncoming bus near Clare College’s sports ground.

A 12-year-old cyclist needed hospital treatment after being struck by a bus while attempting to cross the busway between Ring Fort Road and King’s Hedges Road in May 2019.

Kathleen Pitts, 52, lost her life in October 2021, when she was struck by a bus while walking on the pathway beside the southern section of the guided busway, just a few hundred metres from where Mr Moir had died.

Three weeks later, a 16-year-old cyclist suffered life-changing injuries at a crossing point at Buchan Street.

The council has since installed fencing along sections of the busway and altered speed limits.

Kathleen Pitts
Kathleen Pitts

Commenting on the death of Ms Pitts, 52, who died after she was struck on the head by a passing bus, the judge said the defence submitted that “on the balance of probabilities” her death was “caused by her own volition”, and that prosecutors accepted that they “cannot be sure to the criminal standard that Ms Pitts didn’t lose her life by her own volition”.

The judge said it was not his place to “displace the role of the coroner”, but that he found that the risk Ms Pitts faced from the busway “more than minimally contributed to her death”.

He added that it was “clear that changes for the better in the guided busway have been under way since 2022”, noting reductions in speed limits and the installation of fencing.

Speaking outside court last week, Mr Moir’s brother, Rob Moir, said: “There are no winners here. It’s taxpayers’ money at the end of the day.

Steven Moir, who died on the Cambridgeshire guided busway after his bike clipped a kerb separating him from the busway and he fell into the path of a bus in 2018. Picture: Moir family
Steven Moir, who died on the Cambridgeshire guided busway after his bike clipped a kerb separating him from the busway and he fell into the path of a bus in 2018. Picture: Moir family

“Hopefully it will be sufficient to make sure that not just this county council but other people, other councils, wake up and make sure they apply the due diligence that they should to health and safety.”

Graham Tompkins, a principal inspector for the Health and Safety Executive, said afterwards that the death of Mrs Taylor “should have been a wake-up call” but “sadly, lessons were not learned”.

“This is a significant moment for the families,” he said. “This case has been hanging over them like an awful storm. I want to pay tribute to their courage, and I hope that finally, this outcome gives them some closure so they can move on with their lives.”

The HSE investigation found basic safety measures were missing along the St Ives-Cambridge guided busway for more than a decade after it opened in 2011, including:

- lighting of some crossing points
- appropriate speed limits for buses
- sufficient measures to separate pedestrians and other users including cyclists from passing buses; and
- adequate signage warning of dangers.

The council pleaded guilty to two offences under section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The charges related to failing to protect the public both at crossing points and while travelling alongside the busway.

It has issued an unreserved apology for the failings.



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