UK rail company's ex-chairman to testify

John Robinson, the former chairman of Railtrack, will be the first witness to take the stand this week in the multimillion pound compensation claim brought by former shareholders in the rail infrastructure company.

Mr Robinson's testimony is expected to put him on a collision course with evidence that will be given later in the High Court case by Stephen Byers, the former Secretary of State for Transport, who took the decision to put Railtrack into administration in 2001.

Mr Byers' appearance in the witness box, likely at the end of this week or next week, is expected to be the high point of the case.

The hearing, which began on Monday last week, has so far heard from the claimants' barrister, Keith Rowley QC, who told the court that Mr Byers lied about the events that led to Railtrack going into administration on 7 October 2001.

Mr Robinson has a combative reputation and is appearing only after receiving a witness summons by the claimants. His version of a key meeting with Mr Byers on 25 July 2001 is one of the central points of the lawsuit, brought by almost 50,000 private investors.

According to Mr Byers, it was at this meeting that he was first alerted to the gravity of the financial crisis that had hit Railtrack. Mr Byers contends that Mr Robinson told him the company needed urgent government help and Mr Robinson supposedly said, in a crucial phrase, that Railtrack would not be able to be certified as a "going concern" when it reported financial results later in the year.

Mr Robinson denies ever using this "going concern" phrase. The dispute over the meeting is complicated by the fact that, unusually, no written notes were taken of key parts of the event. Mr Robinson has also said that Mr Byers then avoided him until just before the Government filed its petition to put Railtrack into administration, in October 2001.

- INDEPENDENT