Jury deliberates on verdict in Croydon tram disaster trial

Alfred Dorris denies a single charge of failing to take reasonable care at work over the incident in which seven people died.

Alfred Dorris denies a single charge of failing to take reasonable care at work under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (James Manning/PA) (PA Archive)

A jury has retired in the trial of a driver over the Croydon tram disaster in which seven people were killed.

Alfred Dorris, 49, was allegedly going three times the speed he was supposed to be doing before his tram derailed on a sharp curve at Sandilands in south London.

The prosecution allege Dorris may have had a “micro-sleep” or become disorientated before the crash on November 9 2016.

Dorris, from Beckenham, south-east London, denies a single charge of failing to take reasonable care at work under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

On Monday, Mr Justice Fraser sent the jury out at the Old Bailey to start deliberating on its verdict.

The people who died were: Dane Chinnery, 19, Philip Seary, 57, Dorota Rynkiewicz, 35, Robert Huxley, 63, and Philip Logan, 52, all from New Addington, and Donald Collett, 62, and Mark Smith, 35, both from Croydon.