A recruitment firm faces unlimited fines after a 21-year-old student was hit and killed by a train while working on a railway line.

Michael Mungovan from County Cork, Ireland, was earning holiday money as a casual railway worker when a train just outside Vauxhall Bridge station in Battersea ran him over in October 2000.

McGinley Recruitment Services and the construction firm Balfour Beatty pleaded guilty to two charges at City of London magistrates court last week.

McGinley and Balfour Beatty were charged by the Health and Safety Executive with failing in their duty to ensure that the Brunel University student was not endangered while at work and failing to make sure he was informed properly about his hazardous work.

Mungovan was working on the line with a colleague trying to bring a section of track out of use so maintenance could work on it. His family said he had received just nine hours’ training and did not hold a valid track safety card. He had been in the job for just three days.

The court accepted their guilty pleas under section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act but agreed to drop other charges.

The case has been referred for an Old Bailey hearing on 16 July.

A spokesman for McGinley Recruitment Services said: “We can confirm that we pleaded guilty to charges in relation to the death of worker Michael Mungovan. As the case is currently being considered, McGinley is unable to comment any further at this time.”

Balfour Beatty declined to comment.