Defendant punched as hearings get under way into Santiago de Compostela derailment that killed 80 people

The trial of two men charged with causing the deaths of 80 people in Spain’s deadliest train crash in decades has begun, with one of the defendants being punched as tensions boiled over outside the courtroom.

Francisco José Garzón, who was driving the high-speed train when it crashed near the north-west Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela on 24 July 2013, faces four years in prison if convicted, as does Andrés Cortabitarte, a former safety director at Spain’s state-owned rail infrastructure company, Adif.