Northern rail conductors 'encouraged to use body-worn cameras' after 200 assaults on staff

The report said 44 of the attacks had resulted in injuries to staff.It added: “Forty-one of these injuries were minor, whilst three resulted in more than seven days of lost time.”

However, all forms of assault, including verbal attacks, fell by two per cent.

Alex Hornby, commercial and customer director for Northern, said the company is doing all it can to reduce attacks on staff, including through the use of body-worn cameras by conductors.

He said: “The vast majority of our journeys operate without incident. We have 2,500 journeys a day, but still 200 incidents in a year is still 200 too many.

“We’re doing our utmost to mitigate and reduce that. Body-worn cameras are critical in that. We supply and encourage all our colleagues to wear body-worn cameras, and they have led to numerous prosecutions, which we see as a point of deterrence.”

Mr Hornby added ongoing improvements to the company’s trains can also play a part.

“The more we can create a railway that seems a pleasure to use and seems safe to use, the more those incidents will reduce further,” he said.

“Sometimes there has to be a way of deterring bad behavior. But what we really want to concentrate on is encouraging good behaviour.”

The company’s results state that Northern has a two-fold approach to the issue based on “prevention and prosecution”.

It said: “Northern delivers conflict resolution training and awareness to our staff supported by one to one debriefs with peer support and British Transport Police on request. We have a clear policy of de-escalating, of not putting oneself at risk, further supported by local initiatives that focus on areas of identified risk in partnership with BTP and other stakeholders including Network Rail and contractors.”

The company also employs 60 ‘Travel Safe Officers’, whose central role is public and staff reassurance.

Northern’s accounts also revealed it is focusing on tackling the issue of fare evasion, which in the last financial year affected 3.4 per cent of the company’s revenue.

Mr Hornby said fare evasion is currently now at around 2.5 per cent compared to about 11 per cent around six years ago.

“We've invested in gate lines at stations, we've invested in colleagues to travel around the network for extra ticket inspections, and it's largely working.

“There was a perception 10 years ago that the North was seen as a railway you didn’t need to pay for.

“The vast majority of our customers are deeply trustworthy people who want to pay the right fare.

“But there's still over two per cent that are still trying to find ways to to not act fairly. On the flip side, what I want to do is ensure that we've got a railway that where people can understand ticketing.

“We also have to make sure that tickets are simple, they're affordable, they're easy to buy, and they're easy to understand.”

The latest accounts said Northern “has played a leading role” in the rail industry's response to official recommendations on revenue protection by “piloting new ways of working, improving training and contributing to emerging industry strategy”.