Rangers fan relives fatal crash horror
Trial told supporters’ bus was going too fast
by WILMA RILEY A RANGERS supporter yesterday told a court of the moments leading up to a bus crash that killed a fellow fan.
John Burns, 63, from Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, was giving evidence at the trial of Callum Phillips, who denies causing 39-year-old Ryan Baird’s death by dangerous driving.
John told the High Court in Glasgow he was taking a six-year-old boy to his first Rangers game when the accident happened on October 1, 2016.
He said Phillips had to double back at Cumnock, Ayrshire, to pick up two passengers. The accused’s driving then “seemed to get more erratic, as if he was trying to make up time”.
John said he became worried as the bus with 37 fans on board approached Crossroads roundabout, south of Kilmarnock.
He recalled: “I said to myself, ‘No way is this bus going round the roundabout’. It was going too fast.”
The witness, who was sitting about five rows behind the driver, said he grabbed hold of the boy.
He added: “The next thing I remember is branches hitting the windscreen. I was thrown through the window.”
John’s back was covered in cuts from broken glass. The boy was not injured but still suffers nightmares.
Earlier, a 16-year-old boy, who was on the Nith Valley Rangers Supporters’ Club bus, also told the jury that the driver approached the roundabout too fast.
Phillips, 49, of Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire, faces two other charges of driving a bus dangerously in the months before the crash. He denies all the charges. The trial continues.