A mother of three died in hospital a month after being paralysed when she fell as a bus braked sharply to avoid a car in Birmingham, an inquest has heard.

Passenger Julie Layton, 37, was left unable to move from the chest down after suffering a broken neck shortly after the bus pulled away from a stop on June 25 last year.

Birmingham's coroner's court heard that Ms Layton, who died of multiple organ failure on July 22, was with her three children, then aged between 15 and 11, at the time of the fall.

Emma Walker, who was with Ms Layton when she boarded the double-decker bus in Yardley Wood, told the inquest that the victim appeared to have both hands free when she fell.

Under questioning from the Birmingham Coroner, Ms Walker said she believed the bus had braked suddenly to avoid a red car which was turning into a residential home.

The witness told the court: "All of a sudden, Julie just went flying to the front of the bus. I don't know how she fell, she just said 'help me' and the next thing I saw she was on the floor - I presume she fell backwards because she was walking up the bus."

Describing the aftermath of the incident, Ms Walker said Ms Layton was in obvious pain and told how she helped to get the three children off the bus as she waited for an ambulance.

The driver of the Travel West Midlands vehicle, Riaz Ahmed, was present at the inquest but chose not to answer questions from the coroner.

But in a police interview read to the court, Mr Ahmed claimed he had braked to avoid a car which had overtaken his vehicle and then stopped in front of him.

Pathologist Edward Jones told the inquest that the "irretrievable" damage to Ms Layton's spinal cord was likely to have been caused by a sudden bending of the neck as she hit her head on an object during the fall.

(Proceeding)