A FORMER Midland Metro driver has denied that he was chatting to a conductor as his tram struck a Midland woman at an inquest into her death.

As Sherman Porter approached The Crescent tramp stop at Bilston he told the inquest he thought he could see a sandbag lying on the tracks.

But he later discovered that the object was, in fact, 30-year-old Cheryl Flanagan.

Worcestershire coroner Geraint Williams heard that Miss Flanagan’s family had feared Mr Porter was distracted by holding a conversation with conductor Gurdev Singh Khera as the tragedy occurred on December 12, 2003.

Mr Williams said: “The family’s anxiety was that Mr Singh and Mr Porter were talking to each other and that he [Mr Porter] wasn’t paying attention.”

Mr Porter, who is now a senior train conductor, said driving conditions were dark, foggy and drizzly but he had had his headlights on as he approached two bridges before the Crescent stop in Bilston.

“Just before the first bridge you’ve got a speed board there on the left and just before then you start slowing down,” he said, adding that he noticed something on the track after passing under the first bridge.

“It looked like, from my view, a sandbag – some sort of sandbag just gone hard.”

He said the object was between the rails and decided to carry on as he thought his vehicle would clear it.