Lord Hendy forced Systra to sack engineer for raising concerns about crowd crush at Euston station

The former Systra employee is rail engineer and writer Gareth Dennis, who is a regular media commentator on UK railway issues (including on NCE). He believes that Hendy’s actions are illegal and that his position as rail minister is “no longer tenable”.

In his role as engineer and rail safety advocate, Dennis told the Independent in April this year that with “thousands of people squished into [Euston station] it’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe”.

This comment echoed concerns raised by rail regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) about health and safety concerns at Euston in an improvement notice issued to Network Rail in September 2023.

However, Dennis’ quotes attracted the ire of Hendy, who wrote to Systra – where Dennis held the role of UK professional head of track – telling the firm in no uncertain terms that its chances of doing business with Network Rail would be hampered if Dennis was not sanctioned.

An email from Hendy in the week after the Independent piece was published reveals that he asked Network Rail officials “how did we deal with him?”, referring to Dennis. Unsatisified that the engineer was still employed at Systra, Hendy wrote to the firm directly.

The letter to Systra CEO Nick Salt, dated one month after the Independent piece was published, has been released through a Freedom of Information request by Politico, which first reported on the case.

“Gareth Dennis is a Systra employee so he must write with your authority,” Hendy wrote. “Please let me know what evidence you have to substantiate his allegation or alternatively what action you are taking that what he alleges is not your company’s view.”

Hendy signs off the letter with the threat: “And, of course, finding a potential supplier criticising a possible client reflects adversely on your likelihood of doing business with us or our supply chain.”

Dennis told NCE that he was suddenly called in for a meeting and asked to present evidence of his claims about Euston. He presented the ORR’s improvement notice and an HS2 document that stated that “doing the minimum at Euston station would result in it being closed regularly for overcrowding”, Dennis said. He also relayed experiences he heard firsthand from disabled travellers through is accessibility work.

Emails released through a subject access request reveal that the rail minister was “not convinced” and that the response was “unsatisfactory”.

Dennis was suspended less than a week later. He was offered a financial settlement to leave Systra as long as he signed a confidentiality agreement but he refused. After three months of disciplinary process was officially let go earlier this month.

Systra told NCE that it is “unable to comment on individual staff matters other than to confirm that a thorough investigation was carried out”.

Engineers’ duty to raise concerns

Network Rail told NCE that “the rail regulator’s concerns raised in September 2023 about passenger congestion at Euston station were addressed and put to bed in December 2023, months before the Independent piece was published”.

The ORR confirmed to NCE that “Network Rail conducted a risk assessment to identify what control measures were required to manage passenger traffic flows and overcrowding and to put these controls into place. We were content that the action taken by Network Rail was sufficient for us to close out the notice in December 2023”.

However, the issues of overcrowding at Euston remain a constant issue, hence the Independent article in April where it is described as “hell on earth” and features quotes from passengers saying it is “depressing and disgusting” and “a petri dish of chaos”.

“Euston is a serious problem,” Dennis told NCE. “Given the lack of overall progress within the station concourse it’s quite clear there is no real effort to progress what’s happening at the station.”

Dennis said he is “not targeting individuals on the front line at Euston” who work for Network Rail or the train operators, but “addressing the challenges to Hendy and to [Network Rail managing director Andrew] Haines”.

“The challenge is to the leadership of the industry,” he asserted.

He went on to say that it is an engineer’s duty to raise these types of concerns. “I am not consultant, I am an engineer and that’s very different,” he said. “That puts a very different swing on my responsibilities to society, over and above my responsibilities to my employer – and if you’re an employer of engineers you should understand this.”

Dennis is also co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, which aims to make the railways more accessible for disabled travellers.

“I have disabled travellers and passenger activists talking to me all the time about their experiences on the railway and Euston comes up time and again,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable for [non-disabled people] to get through Euston when there’s a crush – can you imagine doing that with a guide dog or in a wheelchair?”

He believes that Network Rail will have done the minimum to meet the requirements set by the regulator when it raised concerns last year.

“Safety goes beyond standards, and that’s a really important thing to grasp,” he said.

Dennis commented that his treatment is a “damning indictment on what the leadership of the industry sees as safety culture”.

“They cannot say that they have a supportive, proactive safety culture when this is actually the material response to uses and problems being raised,” he added.

Hendy’s ‘no longer tenable’ position

Hendy was chair of Network Rail at the time the issues were raised, but in July was made rail minister under the new government led by prime minister Keir Starmer.

Dennis believes that his job is “no longer tenable” and “he cannot remain in that post”.

“It’s just unacceptable for someone who exploits their position of power like that to crush dissent at a time when he is essentially in charge of remodelling and reshaping what the new rail industry is going to be,” he said. “It is absolutely unacceptable for him to be in that position given this is his attitude to safety, to accessibility and to young advocates of the industry.”

Dennis said his story “is not the only one out there” and that plenty of people have been in contact to say that they had to sign non-disclosure agreements after having similar pressure applied by Hendy.

“There’s, unfortunately, lots of stories – frustratingly particularly from women – who’ve been in this position,” he continued. Dennis said he knew personally of numerous women in the rail industry who have “risen to a position of prominence, started making positive change and making the old guard feel uncomfortable and have therefore been pressured out of their roles”.

He said he would like to know which other companies Hendy has pressured into sacking employees.

“For him to write what he wrote [in the letter to the Systra CEO] without realising it’s a smoking gun means he has sent letters like that lots of time before [and has] lost track of what is actually legally acceptable and what is very decidedly not,” Dennis said.

Network Rail said it had no further comment to make on these claims.

Systra’s culpability

Dennis also said he had no sympathy for Systra’s position – whom he joined in his “dream job” at the end of 2023. He said the behaviour of Salt and Systra managing director Steve Higham has been “craven”.

“They were a big fan of my advocacy, it’s one of the reasons they employed me,” he said. “They saw it as a positive until Hendy threatened them.

“Ironically enough, in the month after the [Independent] article had been published, I received an email from Nick Salt, the CEO, congratulating me on my 2024 Young Rail Professional Award [for Distinguished Service].

“So, clearly, there was not a problem with the article until Hendy threatened them.”

Dennis believes that Systra should have gone to the Network Rail MD and raised concerns about Hendy “very illegally” threatening to withhold business from the company. He believes Haines would have told Hendy to “wind his neck in”.

However, the emails between Hendy and Systra that Dennis received through a subject access request, show it is “quite clear from the moment Hendy emailed them they were discussing me leaving the business”.

“The investigation and the disciplinary process was just a sham so that they could justify to themselves that that decision was made,” Dennis said.

Due to Dennis having been in the role for less than a year, he was unable to lodge an unfair dismissal case.

“The RMT Union supported me as much as they could, but because of the UK employment laws there’s only so much they could do,” he said.

Advocacy difficulty

Dennis said that his comments about Euston safety hazards were not whistleblowing.

“I was merely interpreting a publicly available safety document as an engineer, as I’ve done in the past with other reports,” he said. “I would say that is a moral duty of every engineer, but it’s also something I’d pre-agreed with Systra as part of my employment with them.”

Ultimately, Dennis states that this experience has reinforced to him that “bizarrely, it’s very difficult to work in this industry and be an advocate for it”.

“That’s backwards to me – the people who work in the industry should be empowered to be its biggest advocates,” he added.

Like what you've read? To receive New Civil Engineer's daily and weekly newsletters click here.