Polish driver in M1 crash that killed 8 ‘didn’t have licence and was sleeping’
A POLISH lorry driver accused of causing a crash on the M1 that killed eight did not have an HGV licence, a court heard yesterday.
Six men and two women travelling in a minibus died in the crash involving Ryszard Masierak’s vehicle and another lorry last month.
Masierak had been asleep in his stationary lorry on the motorway’s inside lane for 12-and-a-half minutes before the crash at 3.15am on August 26, Aylesbury Crown Court was told.
As the minibus – travelling to London from Nottingham – tried to avoid Masierak’s vehicle on the southbound carriageway near Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, it hit another lorry driven by David Wagstaff in the middle lane.
Of the 12 people in the minibus, eight were killed and the other four were seriously injured.
It was Britain’s worst road crash for more than two decades.
The 31-year-old Polish-born driver, who is alleged to have been over the drink-drive limit at the time of the crash, faces eight counts of causing death by dangerous driving, as well as four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and eight counts of causing death by careless driving while over the prescribed limit.
Masierak, of Evesham, Worcestershire, was yesterday denied bail by Judge Francis Sheridan after prosecutors claimed that he could be flight risk. Nigel Ogborne, prosecuting, said: ‘At the time of this offence VOSA [Vehicle and Operator Services Agency] had revoked his HGV licence.’ However, Masierak’s employers had not been informed. Defending Maseriak, Laban Leake said the lorry driver had been living in the UK for eight years. But Mr Ogborne said that he had sublet his property, adding: ‘The landlord does not know this man as his tenant.’ Minibus driver Cyriac Joseph, 52, from Nottingham, was the only person killed in the crash who had a British address. The others, all from India, were Subramaniyan Arachelvan, 58, and his wife Tamilmani Arachelvan, 50, Panneerselvam Annamalai, 63, Vivek Baskaran, 26, and 27-year-old Rishi Rajeev Kumar. Karthikeyan Pugalur Ramasubramanian, 33, and his wife, Lavanyalakshmi Seetharaman, 32, were also killed, leaving their five-year- old daughter Shravathi – who suffered serious injuries – orphaned.
The girl’s relatives flew from Chen- nai, eastern India, to the UK after the accident while she was treated in Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The family had moved to Nottingham, where her father worked at IT firm Wipro, in January. Magistrates had previously heard that, at the time of the fatal crash, Masierak had 55 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35. Judge Sheridan yesterday adjourned a plea and trial preparation hearing for six weeks. He said: ‘ I have been told by counsel in chambers that the families of the many deceased would like time to bury their loved ones and this is only right – this is, after all, England.’ Masierak is due to appear in court again on October 27. Wagstaff, of Stoke-on-Trent, was granted bail. The 53-year-old faces eight counts of causing death by dangerous driving and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He will appear in Aylesbury Crown Court on the same date.
Worst road crash for two decades