A POLICE officer convicted of drink-driving and being drunk in charge of a child was on the phone to her parents when she was struck by a train, an inquest was told.

Mother-of-three Lianne Matthews, 38, climbed down onto railway tracks in Caerphilly on February 3 after fearing she was going to lose her job.

She was fined £1,000 and given a 20-month driving ban for drink-driving and being drunk in charge of a child by Merthyr Tydfil magistrates last September.

An inquest in Newport heard PC Matthews "changed her mind" about taking her life and may have been trying to get back off the tracks.

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Her family said they were on the phone to her as she stood on the tracks and had convinced her not to commit suicide.

But her parents then heard the approaching train and then silence.

In a statement read to Gwent coroners' court, PC Matthews’ sister, Heather Holsgrove, said: "Lianne called my mother and was on loudspeaker as my mother wanted my father to hear.

"She was crying and said, 'Do you know what it feels like not wanting to be here?'."

The South Wales Police officer told her parents that she was stood on the train tracks but was persuaded to go home to her children.

The hearing was told she was declared dead 20 minutes after the impact at Energlyn and Churchill Park, near Caerphilly.

Investigating officer, Detective Constable Dilwyn Lewis, from Gwent Police, said: "I think Lianne at the time deliberately went onto the track,

"But I think the contact with her mother caused her to change her mind and tried to get back up on the platform and then it was either mistiming or she was expecting the train to stop at the station."

Train driver Andrew Lee told the inquest his train was travelling at 50mph and was given the green signal to pass through the station.

PC Matthews, a schools liaison officer based in Roath, Cardiff, was facing a police misconduct hearing for "discreditable conduct".

Assistant coroner for Gwent, Sarah Le Fevre, said it was possible she intended to end her life but changed her mind after speaking to family members.

Giving a narrative verdict, she added: "I cannot safely conclude that at the point of impact she intended to take her own life.”

She expressed her condolences to the family.

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