Tube supervisor kept quiet over bomb fear to halt panic

Celia Harrison, a senior member of staff at London's Aldgate station, suspected an explosion had taken place as soon as she saw smoke at about 8.50am.

She told the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday: "I remember the exact words in my head were I have never seen a bomb but that is exactly how I would imagine it would be."

Hugo Keith QC, counsel for the inquests, said: "You did not pass that on to the network control centre. Did you not consider that relevant?"

Mrs Harrison replied: "I did not want to panic the situation with the way I was thinking. Just like when there is a fire you do not run around shouting fire because it makes people panic."

The inquest into the deaths of 52 people killed by the 2005 suicide bombings heard audio recordings of three telephone conversations between Mrs Harrison and the network control centre as the disaster unfolded.

She asked for "as many ambulances as you can" as a colleague volunteered to take a radio and go down to the platform to assess the situation.

Tube driver Timothy Batkin said he felt the shockwave when suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer detonated his bomb on the eastbound circle line train, killing seven people near Aldgate station.

The train came to a sudden halt as a passenger alarm was pulled. But when he tried to make a mayday call he found the radio was not working. He eventually raised the alarm by calling a colleague at Edgware Road using his own mobile phone before helping to get up to 500 passengers out. Mr Batkin said: "The passengers on the train, I could hear crying for help. It was a chilling, haunting cry for help. Something that still makes my blood run cold when I think about hearing it.

"It made me think that a problem with the train is not necessarily my priority. I should maybe start thinking about what is happening to the people that need help on the train."

The inquest continues.