Commuter gets £27,000 payout for 'possibly slipping' in pigeon poo at train station
A commuter is to receive a £27,602 payout from Network Rail for “possibly slipping” on pigeon poo at Paddington Station.
The bizarre compensation claim emerged after the BBC obtained data revealing that the railway network owner paid out nearly £1m in five years for accidents at its stations across the UK.
More than half the payouts were made at major London stations, following trips and falls at Euston, Paddington, Victoria and Liverpool Street.
Victoria was the railway station that saw the highest number of successful claims, 44, paid out by Network Rail.
In the five years up to the end of 2018-19 financial year a total of £951,360 was paid out in compensation, the BBC claimed.
The single highest amount was £39,631 for a passenger who "slipped on some liquid" at Charing Cross station.
Another passenger received £36,392 for an incident at Paddington, while one commuter received £28,000 after suffering a "possible lacerated finger" at Liverpool Street station.
The lowest amount paid out was a claim of £10 to a commuter who slipped on ice at Victoria station "suffering personal injury and damage to their suit".
Network Rail's Philip Thrower said Network Rail was a company that took its "responsibilities seriously".
"With tens of millions of people using our stations every day, only a tiny fraction of a percent experience a mishap,” he told the BBC.
"If we are at fault for causing damage or injury to anyone, we rightly compensate them for those accidents and put in place new ways of working to stop them from happening again."
Network Rail manages 20 stations across the UK including 11 in London.
