Selby crash driver loses appeal

Selby crash driver loses appeal

Gary Hart was jailed for five years

The driver who caused the Selby rail crash has lost a Court of Appeal challenge to his conviction.

Gary Hart, 38, of Strubby, near Louth, Lincolnshire, was jailed for five years after being convicted at Leeds Crown Court of causing 10 deaths by dangerous driving.

On Monday three Court of Appeal judges, Lord Justice Rose, Mr Justice Mitchell and Mr Justice Eady, rejected his application for a full appeal hearing.

The rejection follows a previous attempt to overturn his sentence when a judge refused to give him leave to appeal against his conviction in June 2002.

Hart was not present in the London court to hear Monday's ruling.

Lord Justice Rose said: "There is, as it seems to us, no reason whatever to regard these verdicts as unsafe."

He said: "It seems to us that there was ample material before the jury entitling them to reach the conclusions which they did."

Hart's Land Rover came to rest on the East Coast Mainline

At the trial the prosecution said Hart had fallen asleep at the wheel after spending the night on the phone to a woman he met eight days earlier on the internet.

The builder's Land Rover and trailer plunged off the M62 motorway on to the East Coast Mainline on 28 February 2001, causing a collision between two trains.

A southbound GNER express train collided with the vehicle before being deflected 500 yards into the path of a northbound train laden with coal.

Ten men died as a result of the crash at Great Heck near Selby in North Yorkshire.

A total of 76 people were treated in hospital.

Hart's Land Rover was wrecked by the 117 mph impact.

The legal proceedings brought about by Hart have held up the inquests of those who died in the crash.

Margitta Needham lost her husband Barry. She said: "I see it as very cowardly behaviour.

"He (Hart) is not acknowledging his responsibility - the fact that he was the cause of the crash."

The judgement means the inquests can now go ahead.