Independent, The (London): Staying in: The pain behind Paddington

GERALD CORBETT, the then chief executive of Railtrack, arrives at the Cullen Inquiry into the Paddington rail disaster to the sound of hissing from the public gallery. One of the relatives of the 31 people who died in that crash on 5 October 1999 stands up and shouts 'Judas!' at him. Then another relative in the front row rips off his shirt to reveal a T-shirt bearing the phrase: 'You killed my daughter.' Strong stuff.

This is a climactic scene from Derailed, an affecting new BBC1 docudrama about the catastrophe and its aftermath, which is showing in the run-up to the sixth anniversary of the tragedy.

There has been a number of impressive dramatisations of real events of late " such as Cherished, centring on the Angela Cannings miscarriage of justice, and The Government Inspector, about the death of David Kelly.

This piece gains its strength from zooming in on three of the key players: Corbett (played by Ian Redford), a bereaved father, Robin Kellow (Geoffrey Hutchings) and Kerry Hodder (Amanda Abbington), the widow of one of the train drivers.

The horror of the collision between the Thames train and the Great Western express outside Paddington is captured in a few key images " a stray briefcase lying beside the track, the forlorn trill of a mobile phone ringing unanswered from the otherwise eerily quiet wreckage. The grief of a father is conjured up by a shot of him sitting silently fingering a graduation photo of his lost son.

Without ever resorting to hysteria, Stephen Greenhorn's drama reminds us of some of the more shocking aspects that emerged after the crash. For instance, that 109, the signal passed at danger (SPAD), had been the cause of difficulties eight times in the recent past.

The film also shows that despite the recommendations of the inquiry into the 1989 Clapham disaster, automatic train protection (ATP) was never fitted in trains, playing, Kellow fumes, 'Russian roulette with lives'.

But crucially, Derailed underlines the human cost of this tragedy. I challenge anyone to remain unmoved by the words of one survivor speaking at the Cullen Inquiry: 'I could hear this screaming coming from inside the train, the most piercing, most horrific sound I've ever heard. I could hear the screaming, but there was absolutely nothing I could do.'

But perhaps the most disturbing element of all is that the problems which precipitated the Paddington disaster have apparently not yet been adequately dealt with.

I end with the chilling words of Robin Kellow: 'This is an important programme because some of the principal recommendations of the Cullen Inquiry into the causes of the Paddington rail crash, which would put the safety of the railways in Britain in line with the rest of Europe, have still not been implemented.'

'Derailed' is at 9pm on Tue on BBC1