Bus driver pleads guilty to abduction

A former Hamilton school bus driver has pleaded guilty to abducting a student on his bus, but says he was only trying to calm her down.

David Nauss admitted to taking the 14-year-old girl — who functions at the level of a four- to six-year-old — several times to a “secluded and isolated” parking lot in an industrial area when he was supposed to be driving her home.

“He felt he was being helpful and talking to (the girl) about not yelling on the bus with fellow students,” prosecutor Clare Hopkins said Monday, reading from an agreed statement of facts.

“He thought this was a good idea, that he could calm her down with chips and sips from his half-drunken coffee.”

What remains unknown, she said, is whether there was any inappropriate touching or sexual behaviour. Police tried to interview the young victim, but she was difficult to understand.

Nauss, who was 70 at the time of his arrest in November 2017, was immediately fired with cause from his job at Attridge Transportation after his behaviour was reported to the company.

The only words he spoke during the hearing were “guilty,” when answering the charge.

Court heard that police were alerted to the case after a stranger noticed the bus out of place.

The first time the man noticed the bus was the afternoon of Oct. 20, but he didn’t think much of it until Oct. 23, when he saw an old man and young girl carrying a blanket and a bag of chips as they walked back to the bus. When he saw the bus the next afternoon, he followed it as it left the parking lot, Hopkins said.

After the driver dropped off the girl, the man knocked on the family’s door and asked her parents if the bus driver was a family member. He wasn’t.

Once the “suspicious circumstance” was reported to police, officers identified the driver as Nauss. He admitted to taking the girl to the secluded area for about 10 minutes a day starting Oct. 19 in his attempt to calm her down.

The girl, who was in a special program at an east Hamilton school, was supposed to be home at 3:48 p.m.; however, her family noticed varying drop-off times the last few weeks of October.

A pre-sentence report has been requested.

Nauss returns to court for sentencing Sept. 27.