Commuters faced 38 miles of tailbacks across the West Midlands when the M6 was closed for more than two hours amid fears a woman would jump from a bridge onto the motorway.

Motorists endured four hours of traffic misery across three counties as the congestion spilled into roads leading to and from the motorway.

The distressed woman was spotted on the wrong side of the road barriers on the A519 bridge over the M6, just south of junction 15, near Stoke-on-Trent, at 3.15pm yesterday.

Police closed the A519 and both carriageways of the motorway, between junctions 14 and 15, while negotiators talked the woman down from the bridge.

Motorists faced gridlocked traffic on the 38-mile stretch of the M6, from junctions 12 near Cannock to junction 17 near Congleton.

There were also jams on surrounding A-roads across Staffordshire, the West Midlands and Cheshire as drivers were diverted away from the incident and sought to find alternative routes.