THE country's unluckiest train driver - forced to give up the job he loved because of a jinx - has just won more than £142,000 damages.

Four tragic fatal accidents on the line, in less than four years, left Clive Parry emotionally wrecked. He bravely returned to work, after half that time off sick, but then his train was de-railed following a signalman's error.

This incident finally de-railed his career, despite wanting to continue, after British Rail retired him as 'medically unfit'.

Thirty-five-year-old Mr Parry, of Great Sutton, still suffers from post traumatic stress and took his former bosses to court to win the pay out.

The High Court in Liverpool heard that in the last five years, on the same Wirral line manned by 90 drivers, there have only been eight fatalities. But, Mr Parry told the court he felt jinxed and seemed fated to have such incidents happen to him.

Giving judgement, Judge David Clarke said Mr Parry "had a sequence of appalling misfortune as a train driver".

The first, nine years after becoming a train driver, involved a three-year-old child electrocuted by the live rail near Rock Ferry. His train struck the child. Just six months later, at West Kirby station, a woman jumped from a bridge onto the line in front of his train.

Then he was on a train coming into Hamilton Square and a suicidal man leapt in front of it. He was off work for a year but not sent to a pyschiatrist until early the following year.

Then his train was taken over by a relief driver and it was involved in another suicide incident. Mr Parry told the court he kept thinking how it should have been him driving the train.

Since losing his job, he has taken up air brush painting and glass engraving. He praised his former union Aslef for funding the compensation case. His solicitor Matthew Tollit said it was unusual for so many serious accidents of this kind to happen to one person. "We are pleased with the award."

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