The scene after a car hit a train on the crossing at Tunstead. Picture by Adrian Judd for EDP

A driver who was seriously injured when his car was struck by a train on a level crossing, near Norwich, is alleged to have driven round an automatic half barrier, which was meant to prevent him driving forward over the crossing, a court heard.

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Robert Trotter, 25, was impaled through the legs by wooden fence posts following the collision at the crossing at Tunstead, between his vehicle and the North Walsham to Norwich train, which had about 60 passengers on board at the time, Norwich Crown Court heard.

Trotter, of Market Street, Tunstead, has denied dangerous driving on December 10, 2009.

Charles Kellett, prosecuting, said that following the collision, National Express train driver Steven Godden immediately applied his emergency brakes and after alerting emergency services about what happened he had rushed to the scene to find Trotter lying injured in his badly damaged car.

Mr Kellett said that investigations showed the signalling appeared to be working properly and the train’s brakes were all in correct order.

He said the Crown’s case was that Trotter had somehow driven round the automatic half barrier, but his wing mirror must have clipped part of the barrier as he did so. He said the automatic half barriers should have prevented him from crossing the rail line.

He told the jury that the question they had to concentrate on was how the accident happened.

Giving evidence, train driver Mr Godden said that he had assumed the barriers were down when he approached the crossing.

He said he then heard a “muffled banging” and then the train had “shuddered and jarred”.

He said it felt like the noise was coming from underneath the train and he applied the emergency brakes. “The guard then came rushing through and said we have hit a car and it’s gone into a field.”

He said he left the guard to look after the passengers and he had rushed back about 500 metres to the scene.

He said that there were two people already at the crash scene and a request was made for an air ambulance to attend.

He said he could see Trotter was badly injured and had fence posts through his legs and he could see he was in a lot of pain.

The trial continues.