Police officer wishes she'd 'done things differently' before 'dumping' tragic dad at Metrolink stop

A police officer who oversaw the detention of a man who later died on a Salford motorway has told his family 'there's things I wish I would have done differently.'

Benjamin Connor was hit by a car on the M602 after a night out on December 27, 2021. The incident came less than two hours after police left the 'intoxicated' dad-of-three at Cornbrook Metrolink tram stop in the early hours of the morning - believing he 'didn't pose a risk to himself.'

He had been picked up by officers from Greater Manchester Police following an incident at a property in Rusholme. The third day of an inquest into his death was told today (January 15), Mr Connor had gone back to the flat with a man he had met in the city centre that night.

Police were called at around 12.40am on December 28 after reports he had lashed out with a knife. Jurors at the inquest have been told Mr Connor 'wasn't informed at any point' that he was under arrest but that he was escorted from the property in handcuffs and put into the back of a police van.

Mr Connor's mother, Sharon Weir, made statements and penned a letter to Bolton Coroner's Court ahead of the inquest, but has now sadly died. In the letter, she hit out at GMP for 'dumping' the Wythenshawe-born father-of-three at the tram station, saying he was in 'no fit state to be left alone'.

She also said he had 'no money, phone or transport at Christmas' and questioned why he wasn't 'locked up'.

The third day of the hearing at Bolton Coroner's Court heard evidence from the two officers who were in the van that transported him. They said they believed Mr Connor had been arrested for a 'breach of the peace' and that the officer who had initially detained him had asked that he be 'removed from the area.'

In footage