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.”