By Robert Harries,Sally Hind

Copyright dailyrecord

A rail firm has been ordered to pay more than £1m after a woman was killed when she put her head out of an open train window . Bethan Roper, 28, was returning home with friends from a day out Christmas shopping in Bath when she was fatally injured in December 2018. The London Paddington to Exeter service, operated by Great Western Railway (GWR), had just left Bath Spa station and was heading for Bristol Temple Meads when Miss Roper, from Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, was injured as the train passed through the Twerton area. A probe found she had placed her head outside a droplight window – which are found on trains with slam doors – and was struck by an overhanging tree branch while the train was travelling at around 75mph, writes Wales Online . A post-mortem examination gave the cause of Miss Roper’s death as head injuries and toxicology tests detailed at an inquest found she was nearly twice the drink-drive limit. It was confirmed on Friday that GWR has been fined £1m and ordered to pay more than £78,000 in costs after pleading guilty to breaches of health and safety law following an investigation and prosecution by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). In 2016 a passenger died in a similar incident near Balham in south London. The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) had issued safety recommendations in May 2017 following the incident. ORR said that, “although GWR was already aware of a number of previous incidents, the company did not produce a written risk assessment for droplight windows until September 2017”. A spokesperson for the ORR added: “That assessment identified the hazard as one of the most significant passenger safety risks. “However, ORR later found the assessment to be neither suitable nor sufficient and wrote to GWR to highlight its shortcomings. The assessment was not revised in light of ORR’s concerns, and the actions GWR had identified to reduce the risk were not implemented before the fatal accident in 2018. “Following Ms Roper’s death, further safety recommendations were issued across the rail industry, to prevent passengers from leaning out of droplight windows. “As a result of these measures, all rolling stock operated by train companies that had droplight windows has since either been withdrawn from service or fitted with engineering controls to prevent windows being opened while trains are moving.” Richard Hines, ORR’s chief inspector of railways, said: “Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Bethan Roper. Her death was a preventable tragedy that highlights the need for train operators to proactively manage risks and act swiftly when safety recommendations are made to keep their passengers safe. “Our investigation found that GWR fell short in its responsibilities, and this prosecution reflects the serious consequences of that failure. “We welcome the actions taken since by GWR and the wider industry to reduce the risks. Safety must always remain the first priority across Britain’s railways.”