UK rail minister got engineer sacked for raising safety concerns

LONDON — The U.K. government’s new transport minister got an award-winning railway engineer sacked for speaking to the media about safety concerns at one of Britain’s busiest stations, POLITICO can reveal.
In his previous role running government-owned infrastructure manager Network Rail, Peter Hendy threatened to withhold public contracts from the man’s employer while urging disciplinary action — and asked officials to “deal with him.”
Hendy was angered after the engineer, Gareth Dennis, told a journalist that overcrowding at London’s Euston station was “unsafe” because it could result in a crush — despite concern also having been voiced by the official rail regulator.
A letter from Hendy to the engineer’s employer SYSTRA, obtained by POLITICO under freedom of information laws, warned that “finding a potential supplier criticising a possible client reflects adversely on your likelihood of doing business with us or our supply chain.”
The email to the transport consultancy said that “the allegation that Network Rail is running an unsafe operation is a serious one” and added: “Employees here know that what they say in the media reflects on their employment, and I should like confirmation that your employees understand that too.”
Hendy, who sent the letter in May this year, was chair of Network Rail from 2015 until he was brought into Keir Starmer’s new Labour government last month.
As a minister at the Department for Transport, Hendy, who sits in parliament’s House of Lords, is now in charge of reforming the U.K.’s railways and determining their future structure — a major government priority.
Internal Network Rail emails seen by POLITICO show Hendy took issue with a quote from Dennis to the Independent newspaper in April which warned: “You’re talking about thousands of people squished into that space. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.”
After seeing a summary of the article prepared by Network Rail’s press office, the emails show Hendy told his communications chief: “Please check whether we have … and or are currently employing him as we should stop. Accusing [Network Rail] of operating the station unsafely is unacceptable.”
When it emerged that the engineer was employed by SYSTRA, which works with Network Rail, Hendy told his officials to “write directly to their CEO” with “a request for disciplinary action as this is a serious and completely unproven allegation.”
He followed up his email a week later, asking officials “How did we deal with him?” — followed weeks later by a letter to SYSTRA in which he warned the company might be passed over for future work.
Dennis was suspended on May 20, according to a suspension letter from his employer seen by POLITICO, citing Hendy’s complaint.
In September 2023 the government regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), had issued an improvement notice to Network Rail about overcrowding at the station, warning: “You have failed to implement, so far as reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station.”
Dennis, who regularly comments on railway matters in the media, told his employer’s disciplinary panel that he was merely re-stating the publicly available concerns of the regulator for a wider audience. As minister for rail, Hendy’s responsibilities now include overseeing the ORR.
Network Rail told POLITICO in a statement that it had already addressed the regulator’s concerns about overcrowding. The ORR notice had told the government-owned company to do a proper risk assessment of potential crushes at the station and to draw up adequate crowd control plans to mitigate them.
A spokesperson added that decisions regarding the engineer’s employment were a matter for his employer.
Yet after SYSTRA’s CEO Nick Salt initially responded to Hendy’s email by apologizing “for any alarm this may have caused in your organisation after reading the article,” referencing the regulator’s report on safety at the station, Hendy on May 19 said he was “not convinced” by the “unsatisfactory” response and threatened to “take it up with your head office and shareholders” unless further action was taken.
Further emails show that on May 24 Dennis was offered a financial settlement to leave SYSTRA on the condition that he sign an agreement with a confidentiality clause. He did not sign it and was on July 8 dismissed with four weeks notice, following a disciplinary hearing.
Dennis, who has a 1-year-old child, won the 2024 Young Rail Professional Distinguished Service Award.
The email confirming his dismissal states: “As a result of the article, on the 14th May 2024 SYSTRA Ltd received a complaint from Lord Peter Hendy, Chairman of Network Rail (a SYSTRA Ltd key Client). To this end, your conduct has brought the name / reputation of SYSTRA Ltd and Network Rail into disrepute.”
A spokesperson for SYSTRA Ltd told POLITICO: “We are unable to comment on individual staff matters other than to confirm that a thorough investigation was carried out.”
Approached for comment, a spokesperson for Network Rail said: “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 article to which Dennis contributed] was published. Decisions on how employee conduct is handled is a matter for employers – in this case, Systra.”
Asked whether the minister’s conduct had been appropriate, the Department for Transport declined to comment.
Update: This story has been updated to clarify a reference to Hendy’s appointment as rail minister.