Speeding and swerving bus driver killed elderly couple

A bus driver has been jailed for killing an elderly couple in a horrific crash.

Stephen Jones repeatedly drove onto the opposing carriageway and too fast for the road before failing to negotiate a bend and driving into the path of the oncoming Vauxhall Corsa.

The driver of the car Ian McKay, 78, and his wife Helen, 79, who was the front-seat passenger, died after suffering multiple serious injuries.

They had been taking their new car out for a drive when they were hit by the bus.

Jones was sentenced to three years in prison at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

One of the passengers on the service bus Jones was driving, 78-year-old Agnes Marshall, suffered a serious injury in the fatal incident in West Lothian in January 2019.

Judge Lord Doherty said he took into account that Jones was being dazzled by the sun as he drove, but pointed out the driver failed to slow down.

Lord Doherty said: “On a number of occasions in the lead up to the collision on the road between Torphichen and West Calder you failed to keep to your own carriageway and drove onto the opposite carriageway.”

“In my view, your conduct in the lead up to the collision gave rise to significant danger and it involved significant culpability on your part. That conduct caused two deaths and the serious injury of a third person,” he said.

Lord Doherty told Jones that he would have jailed him for four-and-a-half years, but for his guilty plea.

He also banned him from driving for four years and eight months and told him he would have to pass an extended test before driving again.

Defence solicitor advocate Ewen Roy said: “He (Jones) accepts full responsibility for the accident and the consequent loss of life and custody is plainly the only sentence the court can impose.”

He added: “He has been assessed as genuinely remorseful. Then concerns expressed by him are for others and not for himself.”