Bus driver with dementia caused deaths, jury rules
AN ELDERLY bus driver diagnosed with dementia was driving dangerously when he killed a pedestrian and a seven-yearold boy by crashing into a supermarket, a jury has ruled.
Kailash Chander, who mistook the accelerator for the brake before the smash in Coventry in October 2015, was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial due to post-traumatic stress disorder and frontal lobe dementia.
The 80-year-old, who was 77 at the time of the crash, was excused from attending a “finding-of-facts” trial after psychiatrists said he would be unable to give evidence or instruct lawyers with regard to the crash.
Primary school pupil Rowan Fitzgerald, who was sitting at the front of the upper deck, died of a head injury, while 76-year-old pedestrian Dora Hancox died from multiple injuries after being hit by the bus and a falling lamppost.
A six-day trial at Birmingham Crown Court was told Chander had been warned about his “erratic” driving by bus company Midland Red after four crashes in the previous three years.
Chander, a former mayor of Leamington Spa, had worked for more than 70 hours in the week leading up to the accident, which saw him drive “full throttle” for almost 82 metres.
He had also been the subject of eight warning letters triggered by a “spy-in-the-cab” telematics system installed by Midland Red (South) in 2014 to monitor braking, acceleration and speeding.
Seven months before the fatal crash, Chander was referred to the company’s driving school, which sent an anonymous assessor to report on his driving. The instructor said the journey was “uncomfortable and erratic” – with constant heavy braking and driving which “would not have been good enough” to pass an initial training driving test.
A pre-trial hearing was told Chander may have been suffering from undiagnosed dementia at the time of the crash.
Jurors found that Chander was driving dangerously when he caused the two deaths and serious injury to two other passengers, including Rowan’s eight-year-old cousin.
Jurors were not asked to return verdicts of guilty because Chander was mentally unfit to take part in the hearing. They were instead invited to rule on whether he “did the acts” alleged.
Defence lawyers acting for Chander had argued his conduct was careless because it did not fall far below the standard expected of a competent driver.
But prosecution QC Andrew Thomas told the jury: “In the scale of errors, nothing could be more obvious than putting your foot down on the throttle and accelerating when you are supposed to be braking.”