The train driver who crashed a Merseyrail service into Kirkby station was using WhatsApp less than 30 seconds before the incident.
Phillip Hollis claimed he had been distracted by a fallen bag and a dropped Lucozade bottle as he approached the station last March.
But an investigation found he was using WhatsApp just moments earlier, leading a police chief to declare: “I have no doubt this will have caused him to become distracted.”
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Hollis appeared at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday after being charged with endangering the safety of passengers.
The 59-year-old admitted the allegation and is due to be sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court next month.
The accusation followed dramatic scenes at Kirkby station on the evening of Saturday, March 13.
Hollis was driving a Liverpool Central to Kirkby service that was due to arrive at the station at 6.52pm.
The British Transport Police said it reached a speed of 40mph - almost three times the 15mph speed limit - as it approached the station.
The BTP added that Hollis applied the emergency brakes but the train ploughed into the buffer at the end of the platform causing it to derail and create an estimated £450,000 damage to the station, which was closed for around two weeks for repairs.
Twelve passengers and a guard were on board the service, some sustaining “minor injuries”.
Following his guilty plea this week, the BTP released further details about its investigation into the crash.
The force said: “Hollis told police that his bag had fallen off a cupboard in the cab and he’d stood up to retrieve it along with a bottle of Lucozade, before sitting back down and seeing the buffers approaching.
“However, when Hollis’s phone was seized and analysed, detectives found he’d sent a WhatsApp message at 6.51.34pm, 26 seconds before the crash.
“He was interviewed again by detectives and admitted his phone should have been turned off in the cab.”
Hollis, of Spellow Lane in Walton, was dismissed by Merseyrail in September.
In a statement released after this week’s court case, Detective Chief Inspector Steve May said: “This was a complex investigation but we could be confident from our analysis that Hollis was using his phone in the seconds before crashing the train into Kirby station at high speed.
“I have no doubt this will have caused him to become distracted while driving, endangering the safety of the passengers and staff on board. It was only through sheer luck that they weren’t seriously injured or worse, killed, as a result of this incredibly dangerous incident.”
At Hollis’ court hearing, Victor Wozny, defending, said his client had had four decades of unblemished service as a train driver before the accident.
He had no previous convictions and was granted unconditional bail.
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