The inquest into the deaths of the 31 people who died in the Paddington rail disaster has been adjourned until the public inquiry into the crash has been completed.

Westminster Coroner Dr Paul Knapman told the jury he had received a letter from the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, requesting the adjournment until the Cullen Inquiry, which resumes in May, completes its work.

The decision followed the final six inquests at Westminster Council House, central London, on Wednesday.

In three days of evidence the hearing had already heard harrowing details about the tragedy at Ladbroke Grove on 5 October last year.

The accident occurred when a Thames Train commuter service passed a red signal and collided with a London-bound Great Western express.

Dr Knapman thanked the jury for listening to often detailed descriptions of how the victims died, "a task which cannot have been easy".

After the inquest, a spokeswoman for many of the bereaved families, Louise Christian of the Ladbroke Grove Solicitors Group, called on Dr Knapman to consider resuming it after the Cullen Inquiry had completed its work.

She said a number of her clients may want the jury to consider whether a "verdict of, for example, unlawful killing would be appropriate".

But she added that before the inquiry evidence had been heard it was "much too early" to decide what sort of verdict the families would be hoping for.

Ms Christian also called on the government to heed whatever recommendations the Cullen inquiry made.

She said: "There is a history of governments ignoring these matters.

"If the results of the Clapham rail crash inquiry had been adhered to, and the ATP (signalling) system had been installed, these 31 people most likely would not have died."

An inquest on the death of Brian Cooper, who was flung from the cab of the Great Western express, was among the six held on Wednesday.

Other inquests were on Robert Cotton, Roger Brown, Allan Stewart, Fiona Grey and Sun Yoon Hah.

To assist the jury, as on previous days, a computer-based projection screen was used to show diagrams illustrating where the victims sat on their respective trains.

Multiple injuries

Photographs were also shown of the area where the bodies were found, although some families chose not to view them.

The wife of Mr Cotton, a 41-year-old school caretaker and trade unionist from Gloucestershire, wept as the jury were told how she had received a mobile phone call from her husband little more than half an hour before the crash.

A statement recounted how Mr Cotton was sitting in the infamous carriage H of the Great Western train service to Paddington, which was the most badly damaged.

He called his wife Angela at 0730 GMT to make sure she was awake.

The first case heard was that of Mr Cooper.

British Transport Police Detective Superintendent Nicholas Bracken indicated on the diagram how the train driver had been hurled a considerable distance from his wrecked locomotive by the force of the impact.

Home office pathologist Iain West told the jury that Mr Cooper had died from multiple injuries.