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A rail company has been fined £1million and ordered to pay over £78,000 in costs after admitting to breaches of health and safety law.

It comes following the death of a woman who was hit by a tree branch while leaning out of an open train window.

Bethan Roper, 28, was returning from a Christmas shopping trip with friends on December 1, 2018, when the incident occurred.

She had leaned out of a window on a Great Western Railway (GWR) train travelling at 75mph near Twerton, Bath, when she struck her head on an overhanging tree branch.

The service, running from London Paddington to Exeter, was using carriages fitted with droplight windows, which allow passengers to use the handle on the outside when they need to exit the train at the platform.

Describing the incident as '

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