THE sister of a Selby train crash victim has blasted the driver who caused the tragedy, after he claimed it was fate that ten people lost their lives.

Judith Cairncross, whose brother Raymond Robson – a train guard – was killed in the crash, said it “tears at your heart strings” that Gary Hart still could not admit his responsibility.

Speaking after yesterday’s memorial service, she said she had been “very angry and upset” when she heard his comments.

“He started a chain reaction,” she said.

“He was responsible and he may have some peace, but we certainly don’t.

“There are still some injured souls out there. His comments were awful.”

The crash happened when Hart’s Land Rover plunged off the M62 motorway on to the East Coast mainline at Great Heck on February 28, 2001.

A GNER train was derailed by the vehicle, and then struck a freight train coming the other way.

Hart, who was jailed for five years after being convicted of ten charges of causing death by dangerous driving, told a radio station: “I believe in fate and I was meant to be there that morning. The accident occurred because I was there. The same for the people that were on the train.

“They were meant to be there that morning.”

A jury at his trial heard he fell asleep at the wheel after staying up all night chatting on the phone to a woman he met on the internet, but he still denies he should have been held responsible for the deaths of six passengers and four rail workers.

“As far as being asleep at the wheel, that’s what I went to prison for. No deaths occurred at the point of impact with my Land Rover.

“They all occurred 700 yards down the track, which I feel other people should have been held accountable for, so in my own head I’ve dealt with it in that fashion.”

He said he felt guilt and a day had not gone by when he had not thought about the crash, but he was trying to move on with his life.

“I do feel for the families because it was a horrendous, horrible way to go, die. I was nearly there myself.

“I have absolved myself not of responsibility, but of knowing anything about them. That would degenerate my life into misery.

“I survived this accident and I want to survive the rest of my life and remain sane in some way.”