Bus driver jailed over death of Rangers fan in crash near Kilmarnock

A speeding bus driver who killed a Rangers fan in a crash near Kilmarnock has been jailed for five years.

Callum Phillips, 49, was driving at speeds of up to 73mph shortly before the collision which took the life of 39-year-old Ryan Baird from Sanquhar.

The bus, which had 37 passengers on board from the Nith Valley Rangers supporters' club, was described as “like a roller coaster” as it approached the Crossroads Roundabout on the A76 around 1pm on October 1, 2016.

It smashed into a lamp post and then skidded along on its side before coming to a halt on an embankment.

One passenger Heather Geddes, 25, who was on the bus as a birthday treat, described Phillips as “flying down the road with his foot to the floor.”

Mr Baird died trapped in the wreckage. Graeme Slider, 30, from Dumfriesshire suffered a fractured pelvis. John Campbell, 69, needed skin grafts on his arms and John Torrance suffered fractured ribs and internal bleeding.

Last month a jury at the High Court in Glasgow convicted Phillips of causing the death of Mr Baird by dangerous driving.

Today Judge Lady Stacey jailed Phillips and disqualified him from driving or having a licence for five years.

She said: “Your driving caused the death of Ryan Baird. Nothing that this court can do or say can lessen the grief that the family and friends feel at their loss.”

The judge added: “You didn't mean to endanger your passengers but you did show a shocking lack of care in your driving.”

Phillips has a previous conviction for speeding in his car in 2015, and was fined £200, and was told that “should have been a warning”

He also has a conviction from 2005 for not wearing a seat belt.

The court heard that after the fatal crash he was off work for two months and left the company he had been working for, Brownriggs.

Phillips then got another job as driving, when asked what it involved he replied: “Coach driving, just schools.”

He claimed that the brakes on the Iveco bus were not working.

But experts from the DVSA and from an Iveco dealership, who examined the brakes, found no defects.

Phillips told police: “I reckon I'm doing 50 at that roundabout. I tried to press the brakes. I pressed the brakes and it didn't work. No brakes. It was not slowing me down like it should have.”

Phillips also disputed the tachograph evidence which showed he drove for considerable periods of the hour-long drive from Thornhill, Dumfries-shire, at 63mph and at one point at 73mph. The speed limit for buses on the A76 is 50mph.

He claimed that his driving had been “normal” and claimed that no one had ever complained about his driving.

He told the officers: “I believed the maximum speed on that bus was 62mph. I don't think I was doing 73mph.”

The jury heard that the speed limit on that road for buses is 50mph.

Phillips admitted in evidence that he never once looked at his speedometer during the journey and claimed that “everyone drives at 10mph above the speed limit.”

Nursery nurse Caitlin Hamilton, 23, from Sanquhar, who was travelling behind the bus from Mauchline, onwards said: “I remember saying to my mum ''that bus is going far too fast. I canny catch up.'

“At that point I was doing 60 to 63 mph. I just thought to myself it was not going to make it round that roundabout. It was just going far too fast.”

Passengers on the bus told the court that Phillips driving was “erratic and fast” and said he drove even faster after having to double back at Cumnock to pick up two people.

Defence counsel Simon Gilbride said Phillips is “all too aware of the serious nature of this tragic case”.

He said Phillips has been “personally affected all the more” because he was friends with Mr Baird and others who were injured and has shown genuine remorse