Judge queries Byers version of talks

THE account by Stephen Byers of a critical meeting with the head of Railtrack was questioned by a High Court judge yesterday.

In his version of events, the former Transport Secretary claimed John Robinson warned him that the rail company would go under without a cash injection from the Government.

But Mr Robinson insists he simply proposed further talks with Department of Transport officials to discuss long-term funding.

The revelation came on the third day of a £ 157m damages action by more than 48,000 Railtrack investors, who claim Mr Byers deliberately forced the company into administration.

Keith Rowley QC, representing the shareholders, read out to the court what Mr Byers told MPs in the House of Commons days after Railtrack was put into
administration in October 2001.

He said that the Minister claimed that at the meeting - in July that year - Mr Robinson warned that 'unless extra financial assistance from the Government was provided' it was clear that by November Railtrack would not be able to say it was 'a going concern'.

Mr Rowley told the judge, Mr Justice Lindsay, that no notes were made by Government advisers at the meeting and therefore: 'That was his (Mr Byers's) version of the meeting with John Robinson.' The judge replied: 'It is in some respects a rather strange version.'

Mr Rowley: 'My Lord, yes it is.' Mr Byers has been condemned as a liar and a thief by the Railtrack shareholders, who claim he ' renationalised' the company by pushing it into administration - thus getting 'something for nothing' by avoiding paying compensation to individual investors.

The MP has always insisted he did not make the decision to put the company into administration until 5 October. But the shareholders, members of the Railtrack Private Shareholders Action Group, allege he made his mind up months before.

The High Court has already heard a witness statement from former rail regulator Tom Winsor which described how Mr Byers bragged that he personally devised the administration scheme in summer 2001.

Mr Rowley read the court several e-mails and memos circulated between the Department of Transport, the Treasury and Downing Street in which the option of renationalising Railtrack or putting it into administration was repeatedly mentioned.

In one memo a senior civil servant talked of the 'Three Rs' - the options of 'restructuring, renationalisation or receivership'.

In a briefing note prepared the day before Mr Byers met Mr Robinson, one official said 'the Government could possibly trigger insolvency' adding: 'If we are not careful insolvency could amount to renationalisation by another route.' In another note, an adviser was asked to explore the Government's responsibilities to shareholders regarding human rights and renationalising a company.

'There you have Stephen Byers asking for, and receiving, detailed advice from the legal section of the Department on what shareholders' rights would be in the event of the renationalisation of Railtrack,' Mr Rowley said.

The shareholders suing the Department of Transport and present Transport Secretary Alistair Darling claim they were victims of 'misfeasance in public office' and targeted malice on the part of Mr Byers, in breach of their human rights. The case continues.

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