Hendon MP ANDREW DISMORE marks the 20th anniversary of the King's Cross fire with memories of how it spurred him to campaign for justice

Last week was the 20th anniversary of the King's Cross fire that claimed 31 victims and injured hundreds.

Then, I was a young trades union lawyer, with clients including the Fire Brigades Union and ASLEF, the train drivers' union. Within hours, I found myself representing not just them, but dozens of injured people and the family of a fire officer who was heroically killed and posthumously awarded the George Medal.

Three days later, I was inspecting what was left of the station. Nothing prepared me for what I found - utter devastation above the fire, eerily untouched platforms below. The sights and, above all, the smells have remained with me ever since. Whenever I use King's Cross, I get a shiver from what I know happened. My job involved investigating hundreds of accidents, terrible disasters and dozens of fatal cases, but King's Cross made me the campaigner I became.

There was the need for justice for the fire's victims, involving fighting for changes in the law. As a result, families now receive compensation for bereavement. I won the first case for the terrible psychiatric injury, post traumatic stress disorder. And I realised how powerful the press could be in supporting a just cause.

For months, I attended the public inquiry and then the inquest, demanding better protective equipment for firefighters, for example. In those days, their "protective" gloves and leggings actually melted on their bodies, the fire was so hot. Much better kit was a consequence. There was reform of the Tube's management, and major structural improvements to the Underground. Wooden escalators were replaced with steel and the first smoking ban in public places was introduced for safety reasons.

But unfinished business motivated me to stand for Parliament. I resolved one issue soon after I was elected in 1997: a reform to give a public inquiry the additional powers of an inquest, to ensure joint recommendations and to avoid families having to suffer two separate hearings.

But the most important change has taken all the 20 years since. It was outrageous that there was no criminal trial arising out of the fire - the law was too weak despite the overwhelming evidence of incompetence and neglect.

Ever since the fire, I fought for a new crime of corporate manslaughter with parliamentary questions, motions, debates, my own bill and submissions to consultations.

Persistence paid off and last summer, the goal I had set myself so long ago was achieved, when Parliament passed the new Corporate Manslaughter Act, which comes into force next spring.

While I would have liked even stronger provisions, nevertheless, if a tragedy like King's Cross was ever to happen again, the criminal law now provides for the prosecution of the companies responsible.

Perhaps now, at long last, that young lawyer of 20 years ago can consider his task finally completed.