A Conservative politician has accused the Mayor of London of a cover up in the wake of the Croydon tram crash.

Keith Prince, Tory transport spokesperson at City Hall, has been calling for an independent investigation into Transport for London’s (Tfl’s) conduct in the aftermath of the tragedy. 

The 2016 crash killed seven people and left a further 62 injured after a speeding tram was derailed at Sandilands junction.

It later emerged TfL had failed to share a report into fatigue risk management on the tram network with an official enquiry into the crash. 

The transport body claims this was a human error, and investigators said the report would not have materially impacted their findings.

But earlier this month, in a cross-party motion, the London Assembly called on the Mayor to appoint an independent investigation into TfL’s conduct.

The Conservative motion was supported by the Greens, Brexit Alliance Group, and the Liberal Democrat member, while the Labour group abstained from the vote.

At Mayor’s Question Time yesterday, Mr Prince repeatedly challenged Sadiq Khan to answer yes or no to his call for an independent investigation.

He said the Mayor was “afraid” to respond, and that there was clearly “something to hide”.

Mr Prince said: “I was quite happy to believe there was just human error in this but it seems that lots of people are conspiring to stop there being an investigation, and that’s very strange.”

The Mayor told the meeting that the victims of the crash remained in his thoughts.

He said: “Transport for London and I are committed to supporting all those affected by the tragedy and our attention has been focused on preventing anything like this ever happening again.”

Mr Khan said TfL had cooperated throughout the enquiry, and had apologised “repeatedly and unreservedly” for the “human error” that led to the report not being shared with investigators.

He added: “I’m unclear what the point of a further investigation would be.”