Bus driver jailed for crashing double decker carrying 74 children into bridge

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A bus driver has been jailed after injuring 41 children by crashing a double-decker into a railway bridge.

Three students were left permanently scarred after Martin Walker, 37, took a wrong turn before slamming the vehicle into the bridge last September.

Winchester Crown Court heard how the bus had been carrying 74 pupils aged between 11 and 16 to Henry Beaufort School in Winchester, Hampshire.

Nicholas Cotter, prosecuting, told the court that Stagecoach employee Walker had been taking the route for the first time when he drove the 13ft 11in high bus under the 12ft bridge in Wellhouse Lane at a speed of 10mph.

“This is an experienced man who should have known the size of his vehicle and the responsibilities he had driving it,” Mr Cotter said.

Cotter said that several students spotted they were going the wrong way and voiced their concerns. Some even warned that it wouldn’t fit under the bridge, but their pleas went unheard.

“The defendant seemingly paid no heed to the height restriction signage that was in place en route to the bridge,” the prosecutor said.

The crash into the bridge caused the roof of the bus to collapse on the vehicles behind him.

Mr Cotter said the three victims to whom the charges related - a 14-year-old boy and two girls, aged 15 and 16 - had undergone surgery to repair nerve damage caused by deep facial cuts which might never heal. They continue to suffer anxiety, with one of the girls saying she had tried to kill herself.

The prosecutor also listed the injuries of another 15 students, which included cuts and bruises.

He said one schoolgirl described the bus as “powering through the tunnel”.

She recalls screaming and shouting and people jumping off the side of the bus to get off. The children sitting in front of her ducked down as the bus’s roof collapsed in towards her, he added.

Neil Fitzgibbon, defending, said Walker was diagnosed with learning difficulties and dyslexia as a child but until this accident had been a “careful and diligent driver”.

He said the defendant had only been given a “partial familiarisation” trip on the route by his supervisors at Stagecoach and should have been given more training because of his learning disabilities.

“He believed he was on the right route, and everything he was doing had been risk-assessed by Stagecoach,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Walker has been consumed with remorse since this accident, Mr Fitzgibbon said, adding that the very idea that he has caused such pain to others by his action is deeply distressing him.

Walker, 37, pleaded guilty to three charges of causing injury by dangerous driving in connection with the incident and was jailed for three years on Friday.

Judge Angela Morris at Winchester Crown Court, sentencing, said, “The entire roof of the bus was effectively sliced off by your actions, with the result that those students on the upper deck were left with varying degrees of injuries and trauma.”

“It’s clear that many of those young passengers were left injured, traumatised and distraught on that morning.”

Walker was disqualified from driving for three years and will have to take an extended driving test.