Teens wreck 41-seater after nine-mile joyride
A PAIR of drunken teenagers have dodged jail after taking a bus on a nine-mile joyride.
Harry Atley, 19, and Thomas Bloomfield, 18, were caught on CCTV writing off the £75,000 vehicle they had stolen.
The sozzled pair took turns at the wheel without even stopping it to change seats.
Footage from the single-decker’s own CCTV system shows one of them shouting, “We’ve just hijacked a bus” as they jumped into the 41-seater and raced off.
They drove nine miles along country roads shrieking: “We’ve just stole a bus, we’ve f***ing stolen a bus.”
But after almost a quarter of an hour, the teens lost control and the camera shows the bus veering off the road and flipping on to its side in a hedge with its windscreen smashed.
They climbed out and fled the scene in Malmesbury, Wilts. But a court heard that Pulhams Coaches boss Kathryn Pulham identified the thieves from the CCTV images and she was then able to track them down via Facebook.
Atley and Bloomfield, both of Tetbury, Glos, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle-taking and dangerous driving.
They walked away with eight-month jail sentences, suspended for a year, and were ordered to pay £10,000 in compensation to the Cotswolds-based family bus and coach firm.
They were also ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work and will be fitted with electronic night-time curfew tags for six months.
Additionally, they were both banned from driving for two years at Gloucester Crown Court.