Posts Tagged ‘British Transport Police’
British Transport Police are appealing for information after a train conductor was headbutted at Crawley railway station.
The assult took place on Thursday 20th August 2009 when the 11.16pm Redhill to Horsham Southern service stopped at Crawley. The attack left the 38-year-old victim with a fractured cheekbone.
“The conductor asked a man to get off the train at the next stop because he was smoking and being abusive,” DC Craig said.
“The man got off the train at Crawley around 11.40pm but headbutted and punched the member of staff on the platform, leaving him with a fractured cheekbone and cuts above his right eye.”
Police were called to the scene but the man fled the station before officers arrived.
DC Craig added: “Why the man felt he had the right to headbutt a member of staff who was simply doing his job is inconceivable, although this sort of violence is rare on the rail network, I am treating this incident very seriously. Everybody has a right to go to work without fear of verbal or physical attack. We’ve made local enquiries as part of the investigation, spoken with witnesses and ask anyone who recognises this man to come forward”
Anyone with any information that could assist the investigation into the incident is asked to contact British Transport Police on Freefone 0800 40 50 40 quoting incident B3 of 28/08/09 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
PFAS is disgusted at this males behaviour and the sooner he is bought to justice the better. Railway staff do an increasingly difficult job as it is, without having to deal with the threat of verbal or physical assault. If you know anything about this incident, know the male above, or even think you might know who he is, please contact the British Transport police on freephone 0800 40 50 40. The police can then decide if your information is relevant or not.
BTP walked out of talks to resolve the dispute after only five minutes today.
Your Reps travelled from all around the country to try and get a deal to avert strike action but management made clear at the outset that they would not be negotiating today and walked out.
This means that the stike is still on.
Memo from TSSA
Fresh talks between TSSA and BTP to resolve the Control Room dispute ended with no clear result.
Once again management seemed unable to understand the issues being raised and unwilling to make any clear proposals to resolve the dispute.
While HR Director Linda Scott attended this meeting (her first involvement) she was not well briefed and there was no-one present from management who had taken part in the previous PSEPP or Recognition discussions.
BTP wanted to get involved in discussing every issue but the main one: why won’t they negotiate changes to terms, conditions and rosters rather than impose upon you?
Trial of strength
Eventually BTP took away some points around the draft Recognition proposals to consider. They said they would get back by Friday! Why have they not looked at this document before? It was produced by them on 22 December 2008 and covered nearly all the points of principle at stake. Off the cuff again.
It seems that their strategy is to let the strike take its course and hope that you give in to their pressure. How typical of BTP: even faced with an 87% vote in favour of industrial action and 48 hours strike, they still treat you with contempt.
Strike all together and win
We need to show BTP that we mean business and TSSA members will never be bullied, cajoled or tricked into giving up. Contempt from your employer needs to be treated with the contempt it deserves.
We know that this is a worrying time. We understand that nobody wants to lose pay and that a strike is a serious thing to do. TSSA is providing a hardship fund to help members who experience financial difficulty as a result of the strike. Your Union is there for you.
But if we back down now then BTP will walk all over you forever and a day.
Comments Closed
Key civilian support staff working for British Transport Police will walk-out for 48 hours next weekend bringing chaos and disruption to the Arsenal v Chelsea semi on Saturday and the Sunday Everton v Manchester United semi the following day.
The staff, who control the movement of British Transport Police and football specials on big matchdays, will be striking from 7.00am on Saturday April 18 until 7.00 am on Monday April 20 in a dispute over recognition and two tier wage rates at the two BTP national control centres in London and Birmingham.
And if the dispute is not settled in the next few weeks, they will stage another 48-hour walkout on the weekend of the FA Cup Final, on May 30.
TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty apologised in advance to fans who face widespread disruption next weekend, particularly Everton and Man United fans who will be using football specials to get to London from Liverpool and Manchester.
“As a lifelong Celtic supporter, I know what it means to see your team in a cup final.
“I would urge them and all the clubs involved in the semi finals to bring pressure to bear on British Transport Police to sit down with us and solve this dispute before next Saturday’s big games.
“We have been trying unsuccessfully to persuade British Transport Police to see sense on this for six months. If the likes of Fergie and Benitez start banging a few heads together, I think we can solve this pretty quickly.”
At the heart of the dispute is a two tier wage structure that means long serving members enjoy old British Rail style public sector pensions and benefits while newer entrants are tied to the more parsimonious conditions applied by the privately owned rail companies which now fund their wage deals.
The RMT has added:
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSW), Regulation 8(1) employers have a duty to establish procedures to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger to persons at work such procedures are sometimes known as Worksafe Procedures.
Should you, as an individual, feel that as part of your duties you are placing yourself in serious or imminent danger during the dispute by the BTP Control Room Call Handlers you should comply with your company’s policy as required by the MHSW.
Moreover, you should not take any duties that you are not trained to carry out, especially if doing so could compromise your absolute safety
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It has been reported to us that rail operator Merseyrail, commonly known by locals as MiseryRail, have made a quick buck from unsuspecting visitors to Aintree this past weekend.
Race goers wishing to travel home using Merseyrail services were forced to purchase a £3 day pass before being allowed to board the train.
Passengers were unable to purchase a £2.25 single ticket to get home. It has been reported that confrontations between staff and passengers occurred who were furious having to pay an extra 75p for a ticket that they didn’t need.
Merseyrail sure made some money back from their ‘bet’ today.
At the time of writing Merseyrail have not commented on this issue. We await their comments and will publish as soon as we receive them.
Today we have received comment from Merseyrail, which by the sounds of the comments received looks like Merseyrail really are not interested at all and looked for every excuse to avoid the real issue that passengers had to buy a £3 ticket instead of the normal £2.25.
Have you ever been at Aintree station during the Grand National Festival? If you have, you’ll know that some 90.000 people pass through the (small) station during the 3 days and that public order and crowd control are the priority for us, BTP and Merseyside police. To manage the crowds the whole of the carpark is used as a queuing area with crowd barriers and lots of staff. This year we provided many toilets as the lack of these had given rise to incidents of disorder (use your imagination…) In previous years and entertainment in the form of a band and samba dancers to lighten the atmosphere whilst queuing. We also handed out 10.000 flipflops to the ladies on their way home who tend to carry their shoes in their hands and walk barefoot.
We double the train service to 8 trains per hour in each direction to get people to and from the race course as quickly and comfortably as possible.
Our booking office is unreachable during the 3 days because of the crowd control measures and therefore the normal range of tickets cannot be issued. We sell a fixed price network ticket at £3 which for the vast majority of passengers represents a considerable discount on their normal fare. This is done make the process of issuing tickets and money changing hands as quick and efficient as possible and to keep the flow of the crowd going to prevent restlessness further back in the enormous queues to make sure no pushing, crushing and other dangerous incidents occur.
We have had 1 complaint from a passenger requesting a £0.75 refund which we will comply with. Any other passengers who do the same will be looked at on their merit.
Rudi
We would advise anyone who was charged the £3 ticket to contact Merseyrail via their website and request a refund of the overcharged 75p. (It will cost Miseryrail more to process it then the 75p you’ll get back)
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