7/7 inquest: Aldgate train's driver asked for phones after radio failed

The driver of the tube train bombed near Aldgate station on 7 July 2005 was forced to ask passengers if they had any mobile phone signal to call for help after he found his radio wasn't working, it emerged today. Timothy Batkin told the inquests into the 52 people killed by suicide bombers that the train had jolted to a halt following "a sound like a loud thud", after which "I could hear crying for help. It was a chilling, haunting cry for help. Something that still makes my blood run cold." But when he tried to reach the London Underground line controller on his train radio, he found it was dead, and he did not think to try a second tunnel telephone. "At this stage I had the driver's door between the cab and the passengers' saloon open. I remember asking the passengers that were right behind the drivers' cab whether anyone had a mobile phone signal on their phone." On finding that he had reception on his own handset, however, he used it to call his supervisor at Edgware Road and ask her to call a "code red", bringing all nearby trains to an immediate stop. Batkin had already pinched together two copper wires along the side of the tunnel to short circuit the power to the track, he said, but needed confirmation that the current was off, as some passengers had already left the train and were making their way up the tunnel. The train's PA system was not working, he said, probably as a result of the explosion, so he walked the length of the train telling those passengers that could walk to evacuate by the door at the very rear. Celia Harrison, at the time the station controller at Aldgate station, told the inquests that she had phoned London Underground's network control centre three times in the minutes after the bomb, requesting ever more hurriedly the presence of ambulance and other emergency services, as the scale of the injuries became clear. At 9.13am, 23 minutes after the bomb, one of her colleagues contacted her by radio from within the tunnel to urge paramedics to hurry, as "there are people dying". She did not believe any ambulance staff had arrived by that stage, she said. The inquests, presided over by the coroner Lady Justice Hallett, had earlier heard from Thelma Stober, who lost a leg after she was blown on to the tracks by the explosion. She worked as a legal adviser to London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics, she told the inquests, which had been confirmed only the day before. She recalled a flash and the sensation of "circling around for what seemed a very long time". When she came to, she was lying on the tracks, with her lower legs trapped under a piece of metal. "My brain went into gear, and I thought that in disasters, it's reasonable for people to look after those who are alive before they look after the dead. I thought of my son, who was seven years old, and funnily enough I thought I wanted to continue my work on the Olympics. So I tried to get up so that people could see I was alive. "I put my hand up, saying 'Help me, help me. I don't want to die.'" Fighting back tears, she said: "What I did not do was to look around and see if I could help the man who was lying there. He was lying there not moving. I assumed he was dead. But I could have held his hand and I didn't."