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| 1. | I was employed by Connex South Eastern as a train driver from September 1995
through to May 2000. I was based at Slade Green. |
| 2. | I have been asked to comment about the degree of tiredness suffered by train drivers, the hours that they work and how the tiredness manifests itself, the attitude of management concerning this issue and the way that they treat those who comment publicly about such issues. |
| 3. | On 25 September 1998 I was travelling from Hayes up to Charing Cross. I had
been driving in the cab of a train for 6 hours without any sort of break. I radioed ahead to Charing Cross saying that I was simply too tired to carry on. I was due to have a rest break of 40 minutes when I arrived at Charing Cross. However, I did not think that this was going to be enough as after that break I had to drive the train for another 3½ hours. Whilst I may have been all right for a time after the break, the 40 minutes would not have been enough to overcome the feeling of tiredness for very long. |
| 4. | I should make it clear that this was the first time that I ever asked for relief. I have never asked for it before and cannot be said to have had any sort of reputation of doing that sort of thing. I had done that particular turn before and was well aware of how tired I was likely to be at the end of the shift. |
| 5. | I spoke on a mobile telephone to a service delivery manager at the Slade Green
Depot. I was getting myself quite upset and panicky about my tiredness. He told me to calm down and said that he would organise relief at Charing Cross. Somebody met me at Charing Cross and told me to ring my Manager, Perry
Ramsey. I telephoned him and had a conversation for about 20 minutes. I was told that if I didn't continue to drive the train I would be taken off of my duty and stopped 3½ hours wages or alternatively I could go back to the Slade Green depot and sit there until the end of the shift when I would have a meeting with Dave Brown. |
| 6. | I started to get upset and tearful. Other drivers came into the room where I was having this conversation. I told Perry Ramsey that I physically couldn't get back in the cab as it wasn't safe. I was already making mistakes and asked him if he would be happy to have his kids on my train on that day. I told him that my tiredness was due to a combination of shift changes and increased chair time. |
| 7. | Mr Ramsey questioned this and asked how I knew I was going to be tired as I rang
into the depot over an hour ago. I told him that I was tired then and I was just giving him prior warning. I got the distinct impression that he didn't believe me and I became really agitated. This was ironic. In the days prior to privatisation if a driver had become agitated in any way he would not be allowed to drive the train, even if he wanted to. The situation post privatisation was just completely different. |
| 8. | All of this took place in my 40 minute break. I drove the train back after having less than a 20 minute break after the phone call ended. I drove the train back because I was in fear of losing my job. |
| 9. | The incident on 25 September I believe was on a Friday. On the following Monday I went to see the Driver Standards Manager Dave Brown who threatened me with suspension. I told him of the long hours, the fact that there were no breaks, and my tiredness. I told him that we all needed longer turn around times and
longer breaks. He said that from his point of view in his day drivers were doing 12 hour shifts. I pointed out that in his day drivers were always down the pub and would usually have to do one journey and the actual chair time on a shift was minimal. I made it clear that sooner or later a serious mistake would be made. |
| 10. | I said to him I am making a lot of little mistakes. I am going to close the doors too
early. I am going to pull away on red. It is only a matter of time before I have a SPAD, which is something that I thought would never happen to me. He placated me some what but never really dealt with my concerns. |
| 11. | On 13 October 1998 I started work at 10.03am on a 10½ hour shift with no more than a 40 minute break. I was right at the end of my shift and 20 minutes late. I was at the last signal of the day to take me into the Slade Green depot when I went through a red light. There was another train coming in front of me and there could very easily have been a collision. |
| 12. | The signal man contacted me and asked me a set of questions and asked if I was fit
to continue. He told me to reverse up the track but this is against railway regulations and so I walked round and changed ends. I remained at work until 1am having a med-screen of urine and breath samples and I was interviewed again by Dave Brown the DSM. He was very pleasant and I was really angry with myself, but I had warned him that this would happen. I then drove home and was suspended from driving trains for a period of two weeks. I was not disciplined for the SPAD and was eventually given my licence back. |
| 13. | This was a very stressful time for me with a divorce. I was working such hours that I didn't have time to sort my personal affairs out and this led to me suffering from depression. In the end I was prescribed Prozac to deal with this. Stress at work was one cause of my depression but the hours that I was working meant that I was simply not in a position to deal with other stressful events in my life. After a period of time off sick with depression I was then dismissed as being unfit for work. Connex's response was that if the cause of my depression was the railway then I could not reasonably work for the railway. I challenged my dismissal and was eventually reinstated. However this was a further period of unnecessary stress. |
| 14. | I can also speak from personal knowledge about another driver by the name of BP [name withheld] who is no longer with Connex. Three weeks after getting his licence to drive trains he was involved in a SPAD where his train almost collided with an express train. It was due to the skill and judgement of the driver of the express train that a collision was narrowly avoided. The man was devastated by the SPAD and said that he would never be able to drive a train again and had to leave Connex. He told me that he was so tired that he didn't know what he was doing at the time of the SPAD. |
| 15. | With the introduction of privatisation and driver re-structuring drivers hours became significantly harder. There was not a great deal of turn around time between journeys and the time in the actual drivers chair was much longer. Train preparation times were cut down or allocated to other staff which meant that
whilst there was not a great deal of difference in shift length the actual time in the shift that a driver would spend in the chair was significantly longer. |
| 16. | At the same time the attitude of middle management changed. Previously there was no pressure on drivers and safety always came first. If there was a fault with the train for example, the train would never go out on a journey. Nowadays there would be pressure from management and a panic to get the train out on time. |
| 17. | Most of the drivers including myself were on Pro-plus to try and stay awake. Many of us were falling asleep at work. Mainly it was micro sleep just falling asleep for a few seconds. This happened to me on at least three occasions that I know about when I had woken up and was at least 150 yards further on down the track than I had been before my eyes shut. On one occasion the automatic warning system on the train kicked in and physically woke me up from my sleep. |
| 18. | All of the Connex drivers are complaining about how tired they are all of the time.
However, it seems that the only people that ever raised this problem with management was Laurance Holden and myself. I can say form conversations with my colleagues that Laurance Holden always had the support of the drivers that he was representing. However, there was a lot of pressure from management and it was plain that anyone that spoke out about the regime was victimised and bullied. |
| 19. | I was so concerned about tiredness that I gave an interview on Sky News anonymously. Connex suspected that I was the person but couldn't prove it. After the interview I became known as the Slade Green One. From then on Connex tried their best to victimise me and drive me out of their company. I have never met Laurance Holden but I understand that they did much the same to him. The message that they were trying to give to their staff was that we can sack Chris Attard and we can do the same to Laurance Holden. All of the staff believed in what Laurance Holden was doing and he was held in very high esteem by his colleagues. |
| 20. | Eventually I was dismissed from Connex. I was allegedly observed not using a
drivers reminder appliance which is a device to ensure that a train doesn't pull off from a station on a red light. Apparently I was observed by two managers one of whom was Chris Edmonds. They observed me from some distance away. The DRA is a tiny button in the cab and I am adamant that there is no way that these managers could have seen what they said they had seen. I am convinced that my interview on Sky News, shortly after the Ladbrook Grove incident, was the catalyst for the action taken against me. They said that I was unfit to drive a train yet they allowed me to continue driving trains immediately after the alleged incident, after the shift and the following day before I was suspended. |
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