Father relives daughter's last moments at 7/7 inquest

The father of Carrie Taylor, who was killed in the 7 July London bombings, questioned one of the last people to see her alive in a poignant exchange at the inquest.

John Taylor listened intently yesterday as passenger Melvin Finn described in graphic detail the scene on the stricken train.

Given an opportunity to put his own questions to the witness, he stood up and in a soft voice asked whether his youngest child had still been alive as she lay bleeding in the wreckage.

"The young lady you described, we now accept that was probably my daughter Carrie," he said to Mr Finn.

"When you first saw Carrie, you described her as having blood running from her nose and her mouth?"

"Yes," Mr Finn answered.

"But at that time, she was gurgling, you say?"

Mr Finn replied: "Yes, there seemed to be gurgling and movement of the blood from the nose that would suggest to me that there was breathing."

Mr Taylor said: "So that suggests to me that she was still alive at the time."

"That was the impression I got, yes," Mr Finn replied.

Earlier the commuter gave a description of 24-year-old Miss Taylor lying in the gloom. "I recollect her face and her eyes were closed, he said. "There was bleeding from her nose and globules or bubbles of blood, I don't know what the correct terminology is, but they were either bursting or moving so I thought she may be alive."

Mr Finn told the inquest how he held her head and torso as a doctor tended to her injuries. "You say you tried to move Carrie, support her?" Mr Taylor asked. "I tried to lift her, yes," Mr Finn replied.

"At that time, did Carrie say anything, or murmur?" Mr Taylor asked.

"No, absolutely nothing, nothing at all," the witness answered.

Mr Finn said he left the carriage as emergency workers began to arrive.

"I remember looking back and I looked at the young lady in question and I didn't look at anything else," he said.

"What I remembered was the figure of the young lady lying in the carriage."

Mr Taylor asked him: "When you finally left Carrie, and you made your way back, were you of the impression that Carrie was still alive?"

"Yes, I would say yes, I was under the impression that she was still alive, yes," Mr Finn said.

"And at that time, was she still with the doctor?" Mr Taylor asked. "I believe so, yes," Mr Finn replied.

Miss Taylor, a finance officer at the Royal Society of Arts, from Billericay in Essex, was one of seven people who died when suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer, 22, detonated his device.

Reliving the moments after the blast, Mr Finn said he saw a "flash of blinding white light". Asked to describe the scene, he added: "Just mayhem, really. It was mangled wreckage, some lights came on from the tunnel, I don't remember any lights in the carriage.I remember smoke sitting, as it were, giving a very eerie perspective."

Tanweer and co-conspirators Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18, killed 52 people and injured more than 700 in the attacks at Aldgate, Edgware Road, King's Cross and Tavistock Square. The hearing, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, continues.