British rail crash motorist guilty

Ten died and 70 were injured in the horrifying crash

LONDON, England -- A 37-year-old builder has been found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving over a UK rail crash in which 10 people died.

Gary Hart was found guilty on all 10 counts of causing the deaths of six rail passengers and four train crew in the crash near Selby, North Yorkshire, on February 28 this year.

He now faces a lengthy jail sentence.

Hart's Land Rover left the M62 motorway and crashed onto the east coast main line in the northern English county, causing an express train to collide with a loaded goods train.

The jury of seven women and five men at Leeds Crown Court reached the verdicts by a majority of 10 to two after almost 12 hours of deliberation.

Earlier in the trial prosecutors said Hart had fallen asleep at the wheel after staying up all night chatting on the phone to a woman he met on the Internet.

The prosecution alleged that Hart was exhausted after spending all night talking to his new-found companion.

Sentencing was delayed until January and Hart was bailed pending medical and psychiatric reports.

Following the verdicts Hart's barrister Edmund Lawson, QC, discussed with the judge the next moves.

Mr Justice Mackay said it was inevitable that Hart would receive a substantial prison term. Lawson said the effect the crash had had on the driver should be taken into account.

Outside court Detective Superintendent Peter McKay, of North Yorkshire police, said Hart alone was "a mobile catastrophe just waiting to happen."

"He could have avoided these deaths, he did not. He alone is responsible."

The widow of GNER chef Paul Taylor said "arrogant" Hart deserved a lengthy prison sentence for his "catalogue of lies."

Lee Taylor told PA News his lies and denials had caused the victims' families added grief throughout the trial.

She said: "To be quite honest, if he had put his hands up and said sorry I might have felt different but he kept telling lies.

"He deserves whatever is coming to him and I hope it is a long time in prison."

'Unusual lifestyle'

Hart had denied dangerous driving. He said he had not fallen asleep at the wheel but had lost control of the car, which was towing a trailer carrying another vehicle, after hearing a bang.

But investigators found no trace of any mechanical faults which could have caused him to veer off the motorway and hurtle down an embankment.

The crash was between a GNER express passenger train and a fully laden coal train near the village of Great Heck, North Yorkshire.

The London-bound express which was derailed and then crashed into the freight train.

The judge told the jury the two trains and the Land Rover "converged like the Titanic with the iceberg" to produce the crash.

Hart had admitted he had an "unusual" lifestyle.

He often skipped breakfast and lunch and could go without a break for 36 hours, staying up into the small hours playing computer games, the court heard.

Hart, 37, once a champion field archer, described himself as a "hunter-gatherer" who worked hard at his building business, travelling on average 40,000 miles a year in pursuit of work.

He told police in one interview: "My life is 1,000 miles per hour. It's just the way I live."

At the time of the Selby disaster he was separated from his wife Elaine, but the couiple walked hand in hand into the courtroom on Thursday to hear the verdicts.

Eight days before the crash, Hart's life was to change after he "met" the new woman in his life, Kristeen Panter, 40, on the Internet. Within days the pair were phoning each other and exchanging text messages, and he said they were due to meet on the night following the crash.