Train vandal sentenced

The train was travelling at 90 mph with 400 passengers

A teenager has been jailed for seven years after admitting he put concrete blocks in the path of a high-speed train.

Lee Brown, 18, pleaded guilty at Coventry Crown Court to obstructing a train and endangering the life of rail passengers.

Four hundred passengers were on the train when it ran into the blocks at 90 miles per hour.

None of the 400 passengers or the crew was injured in the incident, but it happened on a stretch of track near a 60-foot embankment over the River Sow.

The teenager was jailed for seven years

Coventry Crown Court heard that Brown placed several reinforced concrete blocks and a fibre-optic communication cable on a stretch of track at Willenhall in Coventry on 15 March 2001.

The Silverlink train was travelling on the Birmingham-to-London line with a trainee driver at the controls when it hit the obstructions.

Miraculous landing

The court heard that the train left the track but miraculously landed back on the rail.

A British Transport policeman said the area around the track was littered with debris after the accident.

Judge Richard Cole said a custodial sentence was required for Brown because he put the lives of so many people at risk.

He was sentenced to seven years in a young offender's institution.