Stepfather saw children hit by train

The children had been playing a game on the bridge

The stepfather of one of the girls killed on a railway line has told a court how he watched in horror as she stood up and was thrown into the air by a passenger train.

Gareth Edwards, 33, of Tre'r Ddol, near Aberystwyth, west Wales, said he saw Sophie George, eight, and her friend Kymberley Allcock, seven, die as they played on a bridge in west Wales.

Gareth Edwards: Saw stepdaughter thrown into the air

Swansea Crown Court was told the children had allegedly been playing on the bridge for up to 30 minutes unsupervised.

But Mr Edwards told the court the children were never out of his sight for more than three minutes at a time.

He rejected claims by witnesses that the children had been playing unattended for up to 25 minutes before the tragedy.

Mr Edwards and his wife Amanda, 34, were in charge of a party of four children on a summer picnic near Borth last July.

If I had known the children were on the line I would have got them off there

Amanda Edwards

Kymberley's brother Matthew, who was 11 at the time, and Sophie's brother Christopher, who was then nine, were both just inches from the track when the train struck.

The couple also had their baby Matthew with them.

They deny two joint charges of manslaughter through gross negligence.

Mother Amanda Edwards broke down three times as she described her daughter's death and said: "I have this horrific image etched in my head."

Kymberly Allcock, one of the girls who died

She described Sophie as "my life" and added: "My children are the most precious things in my life."

She agreed under cross-examination that the railway line was a "dangerous and deathly place" for a child to be left on its own.

She said: "I told the children not to go on the line. If I had known the children were on the line I would have got them off there.

"To my knowledge the children were safe.

She agreed that the children were out of her sight for a few minutes and that she did not make sure she knew where they were.

In a statement given to the British Transport Police after the accident, and read out in court, Gareth Edwards described the events leading up to the double tragedy.

Memorial: Flowers laid at the scene of the accident

"The children had gone under the bridge and were out of sight, but not for long," Edwards said in his statement.

"I turned round and looked back at the railway bridge. To my horror I saw a train approaching at speed.

"Then Sophie stood up. Sophie was thrown up in the air," he said.

Later, he told the police he had never thought it necessary to warn the children not to play on the railway line.

"They did not mention that they were going on to the railway bridge and because they were playing in front of us I suppose I did not think that it was necessary to warn them because we could see where they were," he said.

Edwards added that the group of four youngsters had walked under the bridge to look for a bottle which they had left there on a previous visit.

He said they were out of sight for a maximum of three minutes before his attention was drawn by a shout seconds before the arrival of the train.

Amanda Edwards: 'Thought they were close by'

Edwards was also told by police that a pile of stones was found on the track which must have been carried to the bridge by the children for the purpose of dropping into the water below.

He dismissed suggestions that indicated that the children must have been on the bridge for some time.

"The time that elapsed between the children as a group moving under the railway bridge and disappearing from sight, and the time when I looked up, did not seem to me then and does not seem to me now to be a long period."