PUBLISHED:
10:55 GMT, 16 May 2013
|
UPDATED:
01:52 GMT, 17 May 2013
Katie Littlewood looked the wrong way down the railway tracks as a train was approaching at up to 60mph, an inquest has heard
A
schoolgirl killed by a train at a rail crossing may not have heard it
because she was using headphones and texting friends, an inquest heard
yesterday.
The train driver said lecturer’s daughter Katherine Littlewood, known as Katie, stepped on to the crossing without looking.
The
15-year-old was on her way to a British Heart Foundation charity shop
where she was a volunteer when she was hit. A set of headphones, an iPod
and a phone were found near the GCSE student’s body.
Katie,
who was described as ‘lovely and happy’, had sent her sister a message
about getting her ears pierced shortly before walking on to the crossing
in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.
Train driver Steven Trumm repeatedly asked in the aftermath of the accident: ‘Why didn’t she look?’
He
told an off-duty police officer who was travelling on the train that
Katie turned around at the last minute when it was too late. She died
instantly.
Mr Trumm said:
‘She just walked out without looking. She’s a young girl about my
daughter’s age. It’s the second time it’s happened to me.’ The train,
travelling from London Liverpool Street to Cambridge, had been
accelerating after leaving Bishop’s Stortford station and was travelling
at 60mph when it hit Katie in January last year.
Mr Trumm was the only witness to Katie’s death and was clear she was not trying to take her own life.
He told police: ‘I saw the female stride forward purposely as if she had made the decision it was safe to do so.
‘As
I sounded my horn, the female looked towards my approaching train. She
looked shocked and then the train almost instantaneously hit her.’
Katie had been on her way to her job at the British Heart Foundation just before midday when she died
Katie Littlewood (pictured, right, with her
sisters Sarah, left, and Stephanie, centre) may have been listening to
her headphones at the time of the incident
Signs at the crossing in Bishop Stortford warned it was safe to cross only when there was a green light
Katie’s father, Simon Littlewood, who
attended the hearing with her 18-year-old sister Sarah, expressed
sympathy for the driver, who was not present.
The lecturer said: ‘The family have great sympathy for the driver for what he had to go through.’
Detective Inspector Andrew Rose, of
the British Transport Police, said: ‘We found a set of earphones, an
iPod nano and a BlackBerry phone by her body.
'There were three uses of
her mobile phone before the accident. The messages were normal “chit
chat” – typical text messages of a teenager.’
Signs at the crossing, near Stansted Airport, warned pedestrians that it was safe to cross only when there was a green light.
Police lay flowers at the scene where Katie was hit by the train
Katie's father Simon Littlewood, pictured with
his daughter Sarah Littlewood, told the inquest he wanted the death 'to
act as a warning to everybody'
The system had been installed after a woman walking her dog died at the same spot in 2002.
There was also what the coroner Edward
Thomas described as ‘an audible warning’. The coroner added: ‘Of
course, if people have earphones they won’t hear it.’
Despite the safety improvements
another woman, Andrea Evans, 24, was killed on the crossing in 2006. A
report into Katie’s death by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch
concluded that it was impossible to say for certain if she had been
using her headphones as they were found next to rather than on her body.
All warning systems were working properly at the time of her death.
The report detailed five years of
inaction and error by Network Rail before the accident. A feasibility
study into building a bridge at the crossing had been approved but not
carried out.
It added: ‘Network Rail did not follow
up a proposal in 2007 to install a footbridge after analysis has shown
that the benefits of so doing would exceed the costs.’
A £2million bridge was built over the
crossing nine months ago. A Network Rail spokesman said the company
would carefully consider the recommendations in the report and take any
necessary action.
Katie’s mother Ruth White, a family
doctor, died from cancer in 2009 aged 49. The teenager and her sisters
Sarah and Stephanie, 12, moved from Morpeth in Northumberland to live
with their uncle and his partner in Hertfordshire.
The jury at Hertfordshire Coroners
Court in Hatfield returned a verdict of accidental death after more than
an hour of deliberation.
A pair of headphones,
an iPod Nano and her Blackberry phone were found next to Katie's body at
the crossing. Pictured are flowers from a previous death at the
crossing
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