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| Rail vandal jailed for 10 years | Rail vandal jailed for 10 years |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| A former railway worker who carried out what is thought to be the UK's worst campaign of vandalism on the railway network has been jailed for 10 years. | |
| Allan Nicol, 48, of Yardley, Birmingham, cost the railway industry millions of pounds with nearly 7,000 train services cancelled or delayed. | |
| He was sentenced on Friday after being found guilty in January of putting lives at risk during the attacks. | |
| Nicol cut cables and set fire to signalling equipment in 12 attacks. | |
| Such a sustained campaign as yours appeared to be without precedent in the UK Judge Robert Orme | |
| At his trial he was convicted of putting lives at risk by setting fire to a trackside relay room in Rugeley, Staffordshire, in 2005. | |
| He previously admitted causing criminal damage to tracks in the West Midlands between June 2004 and November 2005. | |
| His acts cost Network Rail more than £4m, the court was told. | |
| Judge Robert Orme recommended that Nicol serve a minimum of five years in prison. | |
| "Such a sustained campaign as yours appeared to be without precedent in the UK," he said. | |
| "During that campaign, particularly in the area east of Birmingham, you carried out massive damage on 12 separate incidents. | |
| "It was designed to cause maximum interference to passenger traffic and freight traffic." |