No, I stick with 'pre-meditated'. The personnel responsible for maintenance made the decision not to act upon what must have been obvious defects. That means they thought about it and decided to take the risk.

Similar in many ways to someone getting behind the wheel of a car having had too much to drink. No, they didn't think the 'the end result would have come to pass' - in fact, they didn't think.

Apparently the track was filmed at high speed recently, but they only look at the footage in the event of an incident because it would take too long to audit all the footage. Such an admission implies that the records are being made for the wrong reasons...

It seems to me that there is a simple answer... when a maintenance check is made, digital images of the points could be taken as evidence of their current condition. The images should be archived for as long as is reasonable, rather like PAT results for electrical equipment.

Before a certificate of worthiness is issued, an auditor would check the image (easily done via email). A missing stretcher bar would be obvious to anyone viewing those images, and should then raise alarm bells to investigate further. Admittedly loose bolts may not show up, but it would be clear if any were missing!

Yes, there is a cost involved - but how does that cost compare with the cost of recent events?