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London's transport commissioner asked his press team whether a man killed by a bendy bus was a drunk, emails leaked to the Evening Standard reveal.
Lee Beckwith, 21, from Brentwood, fell under the 25 bus early one morning in October last year. He was dragged to his death for almost a mile without anyone on board noticing. His fiancée was three months pregnant with his child when he died.
The emails show head of Transport for London Peter Hendy was furious about our coverage, which mentioned an earlier incident when a pedestrian in Grosvenor Gardens, Victoria, had his legs severely injured by a bendy bus. On 9 October Mr Hendy wrote an email to his head of communications, Vernon Everitt, asking him to "have a go" at us and to reiterate "the Grosvenor Gardens person was a drunk vagrant".
TfL sources told the Standard this appeared to be untrue. One said: "The man was a vagrant but he wasn't drunk."
The next day, 10 October, at 6.14pm, the TfL chief raised a similar point about Mr Beckwith, emailing Mr Everitt and another colleague, Dan Hodges, then head of news at TfL, to say: "What's the evidence that a man with a pregnant girlfriend out at five in the morning was sober?" Mr Hodges, TfL's head of news, replied: "I'm not sure attempting to make assertions about possible drinking by the victim would be helpful."
Mr Beckwith's family were furious at Mr Hendy's comments. "It makes me feel disgusted," said his aunt Christine Harwood. "Lee wasn't a drinking boy. He'd been laying wooden flooring in an office. You can't do that during the day. We don't need people smearing Lee's name."
Mr Beckwith's fiancée, Gemma, was deeply upset by the comments. She gave birth to their daughter on 3 March. She has been named Roxy Lee in memory of her father. Mrs Harwood added: "I can quite see now how people must feel when other people start digging into their characters when they have died.
"Lee's not here to answer for himself." A source within TfL said: "There was real anger in the organisation at this. It seemed totally beyond the pale to blame the victim for his own death on the basis of something we had no evidence was true."
Relatives and friends of Mr Beckwith have organised a Downing Street petition to ban bendy buses. Six people have been killed by them in the last 18 months - although that includes three teenagers who died when their car was on the wrong side of the road.
Figures released by TfL show their accident rate is twice that of other buses.
In one of the emails, Mr Hendy admits the bendy buses "run over more people than anyone thinks" - but he goes on to call for a full-scale advertising campaign to improve the buses' image.
It is further damning evidence of Mr Hendy's sensitivity about the safety record of the loathed buses. Last week the Standard revealed he had threatened to cut the Met's budget after Mr Beckwith's death because officers briefed a newspaper that bendy buses were unsafe. A TfL spokesman said: "These were private email exchanges."
Mr Everitt and Mr Hodges were unavailable for comment.
Reader views (14)
There are numerable problems with the bendy bus pointing to one solution...unfit for purpose. TFL should sort out their priority. Either passenger safety or ego massaging.
- Lisaxian, London , England, 08/04/2008 16:46
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Let Hendy drive a bendy bus for a year. These vehicles are a menace and should be sold off to the French as quickly as possible.
- Neil, london uk, 04/04/2008 10:34
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Mr Hendy's attitude toward the customers of TfL is arrogant beyond belief and utterly unacceptable - he should be forced to resign immediately and without a golden parachute as he has had enough time on a vast salary to save for his retirement. The man obviously has no idea of the meaning of the term 'public servant'!
Bendy Buses are not an appropriate design for the narrow streets of Inner London but do work extremely well in cities which have wide streets laid out on a rectangular grid pattern. TfL must commission a design for a bus that can work safely in the Inner London environment. Some marvellous designs were created by engineers in London in the early days of motorised transport - look in the Transport Museum - and I am convinced that some of the LDA's millions would be well spent on such a design-and-build project. There must be a good market for used bendy buses in the cities where they work well, too!
- Kiwi Expat, London, UK, 04/04/2008 08:51
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Peter Hendy needs to get sacked - a disgraceful human being - I just hope someone has his P45 already typed up.
- Steve Jones, Bracknell, 04/04/2008 08:51
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Disgraceful, this man needs to be sacked asap.
- Neil Grinsell, London, 04/04/2008 08:34
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Note to Boris and Hendy's successor - the people who are feeding the press with these juicy titbits will do the same to you.
- Austen, London, 04/04/2008 07:36
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Peter Hendy has taken the 30 silver pieces. Therefore he has sold his sole to the devil, lock stock and barrel !
I for one am not surprised by Ken's army of lackeys.
- Grant Davis, London, England, 04/04/2008 01:33
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There was obviously a lot of 'bad blood' at Tfl. Not forgetting that Dan Hodges was fired from his post for mishandling the 'internet freelancing' tube announcer affair. Perhaps this was the real motivation?
- Dan Dahair, London, 04/04/2008 00:33
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Imagine having to work for this nasty scroat.
Even if he gets the sack he will get a bumper payoff and simply move to another cushy number.
- Mike B, London, 03/04/2008 18:12
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Hope against hope that the vile Hendy loses his job and becomes homeless. Then he'll know what that poor man in Grosvenor Gardens went through. As for poor Mr Beckwith, change the law so that Hendy can be sued for defaming the dead.
- Annabelle, London, 03/04/2008 17:40
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Why is it whatever this man does he reminds me of Ken?
- Tom, Watford UK, 03/04/2008 17:06
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Hendy is by far the most disgraceful civil servant in the land. Lets hope whoever replaces Ken will replace him without delay.
- Johno, London, 03/04/2008 16:05
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What a despicable attempt to smear the reputation of a dead man, killed through the corporate stupidity of Transport for London. My sincerest sympathy to the family and friends of Mr Beckwith, as if they didn't have enough to contend with.
Shame on you, Mr Hendy, you are unworthy of the office you hold.
- Sarah N., London, 03/04/2008 15:41
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So presumably in his opinion human life can be disposable if the person in question is either drunk or down on their luck, what a charming human being.
- B Yondbelief, London, 03/04/2008 15:36
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