Grieving daughter's plea over CCTV at railway stations to 'save countless lives'

A grieving daughter is calling for more CCTV to be monitored live in a move that she hopes could save lives. Steven Thomson, known as Steve, tragically ended his own life at Eccles railway station on March 9.

An inquest last month heard how the 62-year-old Salford granddad was seen at the station for 15 minutes on CCTV, before he moved in front of a train. That CCTV footage was not monitored live however - and was only viewed following Steve's death.

Rebecca Thomson, Steve's daughter, is now campaigning for all railway stations to have live CCTV monitoring. But Northern, which runs Eccles railway station plus around 340 others in the North, insists it currently cannot afford to monitor CCTV live at all its stations.

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Reflecting on her dad's story, Rebecca previously told the Manchester Evening News: "In that 15 minutes, if it was monitored, somebody could have intervened. If it would have been at Piccadilly station, somebody would have stopped that."

Steve's inquest heard that he had suffered with 'episodic' low mood, anxiety and depression - as well as an alcohol dependency which was described at Bolton Coroner's Court as a 'coping mechanism'. Timothy Brennand, senior coroner for Manchester West, found Steve's actions at the station to be 'deliberate' as he recorded a conclusion of suicide.

Rebecca has now launched a petition calling for live monitoring of CCTV at all railway stations in the UK - hoping the move could save other lives. She wrote: "We cannot bring back the lives lost, but we can prevent others from heading down the same path.

"Simple measures such as the implementation of constant CCTV surveillance at all railway