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Hunt for woman who 'burst into train driver's cabin to complain about delays'

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bramling

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Yes. I've also been threatened with a blade, and more recently a metal cosh. I get threats of violence quite often on some of the late trains, unprovoked. And yes, I've always carried on with the job in question. But we arent all the same. Please remember this fact. I wouldn't blame any driver for refusing to carry on, after having his cab broken into and being abused. As I said, its self preservation. One mistake, and that driver may not be a driver anymore.

Excellent post.

The driver is there to drive the train, and to drive the train 100% safely 100% of the time, 99% not being good enough. If the driver feels flustered or shaken up then they’re quite reasonably within their rights not to continue. I don’t think that’s fragile, more being conscientious.
 
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farleigh

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Excellent post.

The driver is there to drive the train, and to drive the train 100% safely 100% of the time, 99% not being good enough. If the driver feels flustered or shaken up then they’re quite reasonably within their rights not to continue. I don’t think that’s fragile, more being conscientious.
Within their rights I am sure
 

Shaw S Hunter

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Had this been an aircraft cockpit or a ships bridge, what would this low IQ individual be looking at sentence wise?

Difficult to say as it will depend on the jurisdiction with the legal authority. But in terms of aviation related incidents unless there is a suggestion of hijacking/terrorism then I think that custodial sentences are unusual. More likely the airline concerned will ban the miscreant from using their services and if an international flight is involved then there may be a deportation with appropriate stamp in the passport. As to this particular incident I have already said that I doubt that a prosecution is necessarily the right way to proceed although that was before there was a suggestion that some damage had been done to the train. I am extremely unimpressed however by posters seeking to minimise the significance of what took place. For sure conditions on the train left something to be desired though I suspect no worse than happens every day on LU but that is still no excuse for the reaction. I wonder how many of the apologists have actually worked on the railway or in some other safety-critical role?
 

theageofthetra

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Yes. I've also been threatened with a blade, and more recently a metal cosh. I get threats of violence quite often on some of the late trains, unprovoked. And yes, I've always carried on with the job in question. But we arent all the same. Please remember this fact. I wouldn't blame any driver for refusing to carry on, after having his cab broken into and being abused. As I said, its self preservation. One mistake, and that driver may not be a driver anymore.
I wouldn't.. These violent animals need to be dealt with.
 

HLE

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(My bold)
There have been many cases in the past when someone has said that there were no announcements only to be found lying because they didn't hear them - so many it would take me years to write them down! There is no reason for as to why this incident is not another one of those cases.
The guard, unless they were sick of their job and wanted to be fired, would not have just sat around. They would have made announcements. They wouldn't have been updating passengers every second, but every few minutes would suffice.
I have seen the photos of Mrs. Buchanan on the Nottingham Post article, and, as bad as it may make me sound, I'm going to agree here. In all honesty, the way she appears in the two CCTV images does speak for itself. People may say I'm horrible for saying this, but I think we can all say that we think the same thing.
RTT is showing the following for the 2W26 2053 Nottingham - Mansfield Woodhouse:
View attachment 66881

-Peter
The train was only 6 mins late by the time it got to

She's probably after another platform now Jeremy Kyle has been taken off air.
 

Amanda

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I live in Hucknall and have travelled that line a lot, usually at rush hour. It gets incredibly crowded.

It also sometimes does get stopped between Bulwell and Hucknall - on one such occasion the driver actually came out of his cab and apologised to everyone within earshot, telling them he was embarrassed at the level of service!

It is also single track in that section, which doesn't help.

And I've been on that line many times and been unable to hear announcements. You can sometimes tell the guard is making them but can't hear them.

I would also say that the general public does not, in general, realise the safety implications unless the train is in motion. I'm betting the woman thought that because they were stopped, it would be safe to interact with the driver.

One other thing to mention about the Robin Hood Line services.... On Friday and Saturday evenings, passengers are banned from taking alcohol on board and the last couple of times I travelled at those times (and I mean after 6pm, not even as late as 10pm!) there are security guards who, last time I travelled, actually boarded the train and travelled on it. It is *that* sort of train. It has been a year or two since I got the train back at that time of the week so I don't know if that's still common practice.

I'm not excusing the woman's behaviour because I don't think she should have done what she did and none of us know the full story but... I've been on there when it's been unbearably hot and crowded with inaudible announcements. If you couldn't contact the guard and there was the possibility of someone becoming extremely ill, I could see why you would think knocking on the door of the driver's door might help. But if there were no answer I would have probably called 999 if it were that serious.
 

Geezertronic

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I can't believe that some people are condoning the behaviour of this individual... I am sure that if the individual was a middle-aged man there would be a lot more condemnation of the individuals behaviour
 

Skimpot flyer

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Are you taking the mick?
Something got me started...
No, seriously, I once witnessed a driver getting verbal abuse from a disgruntled passenger, and the driver told the dispatch staff at Brighton that the train was coming out of service. The driver was delayed on an inbound service to Brighton, and had made his way round to our platform, and was in the process of getting the electrostar ready. I know that it can be a minute or two before the doors can be released, but the impatient guy started to harangue the driver.
I fully support the driver’s reaction. If stress had led him to have a lapse of concentration, leading to an accident, he would likely be held blameworthy.
 
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Peter C

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I fully support the driver’s reaction. If stress had led him to have a lapse of concentration, leading to an accident, he would likely be held blameworthy.
Exactly. The drivers and other members of staff on our railways are expected to receive and put up with all sorts of both physical and verbal abuse and still carry out their jobs as normal, which isn't acceptable.

-Peter
 

muz379

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No big deal IMO and talk of fragile drivers withering beneath her words and cancelling services makes me smile.
Its nothing to do with being fragile . It is about being professional . If something like this is playing on your mind then you are much more likely to make a mistake , this could cause a serious incident which could stay on your record for some time . If you are distracted then you are trained and expected to speak up and make it clear regardless of the impact this will have on service delivery . Trying to explain away an incident as distraction after the fact will in most cases simply land you in more trouble .

A drivers primary role is not dealing with disruptive passengers like this , nor are they given any training or assessed in doing so .

That coupled with the fact that not all drivers are the same , some might take something like this in their stride perfectly well perhaps because of previous job experience or just who they are as a person others may well play it over in their mind a little more .
 

TheEdge

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That coupled with the fact that not all drivers are the same , some might take something like this in their stride perfectly well perhaps because of previous job experience or just who they are as a person others may well play it over in their mind a little more .

That's the thing. I spent enough time on the receiving end of this sort of behaviour as a guard to not let it bother me anymore. While that's a fairly depressing indication of what life as traincrew can be it means unless I was physically assaulted or someone started being personally insulting I doubt I'd stop the job over it.

But for others I can fully understand why an angry earfull might prove too much of a distraction.
 

Tetchytyke

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Suffice to say the damage to the train was sufficient that it was cancelled at Hucknall.

Ah, that explains the Open Train Times data, thank you very much.

And in that case the delay was 10 minutes (after a scheduled 10 minute wait), so my nderstandingis rapidly vanishing!
 

sprunt

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I am not stating that it was the person in question that did it but on top of the cab door being kicked in a passenger communication alarm was ripped clean out of the wall which will generally cause game over on a 15x in any case.

Is it alleged that the cab intruder was also responsible for this? I understand if you aren't in a position to say.
 

sprunt

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Also, may I just reiterate that we are using the facts which are available at the moment
-Peter

The thing is, Mrs. Buchanan has probably done something stupid, either because she is in an already bad mood or for some other unknown reason,

Yes, she is a passenger, and she just wants to know what's going on, but I doubt the guard would have gone for a long time without giving an announcement

Just going on the facts available there.
 

Peter C

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Just going on the facts available there.
I can't understand the reason for your post? I think you'll find these are all reasonable thoughts - if something such as a police investigation worked in the way people on here are saying this thread "should" work, nothing would be solved!

-Peter
 

Panupreset

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If she had forced her way into the flight deck of an airliner she would be in very very serious trouble. Undoubtedly she would be going to prison.

But as it’s a train cab it’s all ok...

Given the current terror threat is ‘severe’ and the never ending ‘if you see something that doesn’t look right’ announcements and internal security briefings, anyone attempting to force entry into my cab will be treated as a terror threat and will be met with an appropriate response. That is to say I would consider my life and the lives of my passengers to be in grave and imminent danger and an appropriate level of response is justified.
 

AlterEgo

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If she had forced her way into the flight deck of an airliner she would be in very very serious trouble. Undoubtedly she would be going to prison.

But as it’s a train cab it’s all ok...

Given the current terror threat is ‘severe’ and the never ending ‘if you see something that doesn’t look right’ announcements and internal security briefings, anyone attempting to force entry into my cab will be treated as a terror threat and will be met with an appropriate response. That is to say I would consider my life and the lives of my passengers to be in grave and imminent danger and an appropriate level of response is justified.

I hope you have a good solicitor.
 

Peter C

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Given the current terror threat is ‘severe’ and the never ending ‘if you see something that doesn’t look right’ announcements and internal security briefings, anyone attempting to force entry into my cab will be treated as a terror threat and will be met with an appropriate response.
I have a feeling that this situation may be dealt with as just being a case of a woman forcing her way into a train cab in an angry rage, and not a woman forcing her way into a train cab to commit some horrible act of terrorism.

-Peter
 

Amanda

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I used to work in a call centre for an airline and once had a passenger on the phone to me, running late and unable to check in at the desk, as he somehow managed to get through security and as far as the gate without a boarding pass. It was a bus to the aircraft and he even managed to get on *that*, but the police appeared (so he told me, and he also said he was hiding from them) and suddenly the line went dead. I called passenger handling at the airport in question a few minutes later to discuss it with them and expecting him to have been carted off to the local police station where they'd throw the book at him - this being only a couple of years after September 11th as well - only to be told he'd been rebooked onto the next flight.

My point is, I thought he'd committed a really serious offence but in the end the local police (in Germany) and the airport staff were happy to let him continue his journey.

With my previous post by the way, I was playing devil's advocate somewhat. I don't think for one second she had the right to do what she did, however I can understand some of the circumstances, assuming she was being truthful. But, like I said, I would have called 999 before I kicked in the driver's cab door!

I don't know if anyone has come forward to support her side of the story - if it was that packed, there must have been witnesses.
 

bramling

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I have a feeling that this situation may be dealt with as just being a case of a woman forcing her way into a train cab in an angry rage, and not a woman forcing her way into a train cab to commit some horrible act of terrorism.

-Peter

Realistically, I don't have a problem with her getting off with a telling off - *providing she appreciates that she dealt with the situation wrongly, and would do things differently next time*. One element which is slightly troubling is that based on the newspaper interview it still seems like she feels she did no wrong.
 

Eccles1983

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I hope you have a good solicitor.


The law is clear in this. You can use force to defend yourself or another - by using violence to secure entry to a restricted area she crossed a threshold. The driver would of in the circumstances been legally entitled to use force to repel her from a safety critical area to defend himself. Now defending himself could of taken the form of pushing her, or the door back. If she resisted then a strike could of been administered in order to secure the door.

The TOC wouldn't be happy, but legally the driver would be fine.

No court in the land would find against the driver.

A bit extreme but I'd be happy going to court if I had done the above.
 

AlterEgo

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The law is clear in this. You can use force to defend yourself or another - by using violence to secure entry to a restricted area she crossed a threshold. The driver would of in the circumstances been legally entitled to use force to repel her from a safety critical area to defend himself. Now defending himself could of taken the form of pushing her, or the door back. If she resisted then a strike could of been administered in order to secure the door.

The TOC wouldn't be happy, but legally the driver would be fine.

No court in the land would find against the driver.

A bit extreme but I'd be happy going to court if I had done the above.

I read the post as one suggesting lethal force may be used, because of the suggestion that if anyone unauthorised comes into the cab under any circumstances then the poster would interpret it as a terror threat. An appropriate level of response to a situation where you or others' life is at risk from an intruder is to take action up to and including killing them.

I don't think it is reasonable to suggest that any intruder into the cab is a terror threat. The use of violence or lethal force against anyone coming into a secure area cay only be justified in the unique context in which it happens. Anyone using violence or lethal force against an unarmed woman in a crop top after she's been battering the door complaining about delays should expect to find themselves on the wrong side of a jury.
 

Kingspanner

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Before this goes another inch I would urge everyone to look at the CPS website for Self Defence. This will save someone having to quote the law later.
 

Eccles1983

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I read the post as one suggesting lethal force may be used, because of the suggestion that if anyone unauthorised comes into the cab under any circumstances then the poster would interpret it as a terror threat. An appropriate level of response to a situation where you or others' life is at risk from an intruder is to take action up to and including killing them.

I don't think it is reasonable to suggest that any intruder into the cab is a terror threat. The use of violence or lethal force against anyone coming into a secure area cay only be justified in the unique context in which it happens. Anyone using violence or lethal force against an unarmed woman in a crop top after she's been battering the door complaining about delays should expect to find themselves on the wrong side of a jury.


I'm afraid that's simply not the case. (Well the violence bit anyway)

Killing her would be a bit much, but would a person of reasonable firmness understand if the driver punched her in the face? Absolutely.

I dealt with this type of thing for years. It is not a deciding factor her dress standards.

The scenario of an irate person breaking into a locked and secure area would satisfy many a court that the driver would be placed in immidate fear of violence. Then a slap around the chops would be acceptable.
 
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