Network Rail was ordered to pay me £3,750 in June, after failing — again — to meet me with booked passenger assistance at Euston. It’s the second time a court has found against them for exactly this failure, and the judge said the repetition made things worse, not better. Network Rail is now appealing the damages.
There’s a long and undistinguished history of assistance failures at Euston. This failure was on 28 October 2024, and the judgment order declared:
the Defendant discriminated against the Claimant by failing to make reasonable adjustments contrary to ss.20, 21 of the Equality Act 2010 in that it failed to provide him with booked passenger assistance at the agreed entrance to London Euston station, notwithstanding an earlier declaration to similar effect made on 17 September 2024
Assistance failure
I’d booked assistance to meet me at the Doric Arch entrance at 6.45pm. I arrived at 6.32pm; no staff were there. Two published contact numbers didn’t work, and two further 0330 numbers rang out unanswered. On a third number, reached via Text Relay for my hearing loss, someone answered after two minutes — then hung up.
I made my own way across the concourse. The judgment explains:
As Mr Paulley colloquially, but nonetheless accurately, put it, he was “at the level of bums and bosoms”. Other people would be less willing to move out of his way without him asking, or less able or less willing to navigate around him. That task would have been far easier with a uniformed assistant, as he had booked and as Network Rail had previously provided.
Damages
It being a repeat incident, the Court awarded £3,750 — roughly three times the £1,325 awarded in the first case. The judgment gives its reasoning:
It is also material in consideration of his injury to feelings that this is, at minimum, the second time that this has happened to him. Mr Wilks and I are unpersuaded of Network Rail’s case that, because Mr Paulley is familiar with Euston, that lessens the impact. We agree with Mr Paulley that, if anything, it makes it worse. Indeed, we find it does. That is not just because it is a recurrence of the previous problem; it is because, at an earlier stage, Mr Paulley would have appreciated just what an uphill task National Rail had unlawfully left him in, and the stress that that would be likely to cause him. That anticipation makes his injury to feelings worse.
Inevitably, it has to be accepted that this is not an isolated incident because this incident, the subject of this claim, occurred only about six weeks after judgment had been given in the earlier claim for something very, very similar. We accept from Mr Paulley that, at the time this happened, this was more of a systemic failure on the part of Network Rail. Not only were they accepting bookings for assistance which they then simply did not provide, but they published phone number which they now accept were not working. Those phone numbers were there for people to be able to get hold of them in exactly the scenario that they had created by not providing the assistance.
Appeal
Network Rail is applying for permission to appeal, saying £3,750 is too much because “The Judge failed to provide adequate reasons for an award of damages so significantly in excess of that which was previously awarded.”
I disagree. The judge gave very clear and accurate reasons why a repeat incident should attract significantly higher damages — they’re set out above.
Consultation
Assistance failure is discrimination under the Equality Act, and attracts damages for injury to feelings in accordance with Vento guidelines. I’d urge anybody to say so in response to the Office of Rail and Road’s consultation on redress for assistance failure — it closes 5pm, 11 September 2026.
Meanwhile, I have two cases ongoing in Court for similar assistance failures at Euston in 2025 and 2026, subjecting me to more “bums and bosoms”.