A BUS driver ran over a young boy after failing to stop at a Greenock school crossing and forcing an elderly ‘lollipop’ man to dive for safety, a trial has heard.

Dangerous driving accused Craig Ross said ‘Oh no, oh no’ on seeing the seven-year-old lad lying motionless underneath his coach on the town’s Cornhaddock Street, a court was told.

Crossing attendant Roy Kerrigan, 79, said that the boy appeared to be ‘deeply traumatised’ as he was sprawled just inches from one of the bus’s wheels.

Greenock Sheriff Court heard how Ross, 46, drove through the clearly marked crossing before braking to an emergency stop in poor winter weather conditions.

But the case is in danger of collapsing after it emerged that police had charged Mr Ross with being careless behind the wheel before the Crown decided to prosecute the more serious allegation of dangerous driving.

Defence lawyer Gerry Keenan argued that this could be ‘incompetent’ in law — sparking an urgent review of matters.

Crossing attendant Mr Kerrigan told how weather conditions were ‘bad, very dark and raining’ on the day of the December incident.

He said he’d walked out to the middle of the crossing with his ‘lollipop’ stick because traffic to his right had stopped and Mr Ross’s coach approaching from the left was ‘some distance away’.

Mr Kerrigan said: “I looked again and the coach was on top of me practically.

“At this point I had to throw myself to the left to avoid being run over.”

He added: “The coach stopped and I got up and ran around to the front of the coach.

“The wee boy was lying on the road right next to the kerb and the coach was right on top of him.

“The very front of the coach was over the top of the boy.

“He was alright and conscious — obviously dazed. He never spoke.

“A member of the public was talking to him to calm him down.

“He was deeply traumatised, I’d say.”

Mr Kerrigan said: “The driver was obviously flustered and genuinely upset.

“I couldn’t understand why the driver couldn’t see me.

“The young boy was very close to the front wheel — just a couple of inches from it.”

Under cross examination, solicitor Mr Keenan asked: “Do you agree that the boy entered the crossing when it was not safe.”

Mr Kerrigan replied: “I agree that he must have entered it when I was busy jumping out of the way.”

Witness Susan O’Neill told the court that the coach did not appear to slow down at all as it approached the crossing.
She said: “I had started to step out but immediately jumped back.

“Roy (Mr Kerrigan) had to throw himself out of the way.
“The bus was right through the crossing — the front half of the bus was through the crossing.”

Asked if there had been a braking manoeuvre, Mrs O’Neill said: “Yes — an emergency stop.”

She added: “At the point it happened I couldn’t see the boy but when I went round he was under the bus, very close to the front tyre on the passenger side.

“His feet were under the bus and his head was facing out towards me.

“He was upset and he was crying.

“I initially spoke to him. He was asking for his mummy and I phoned for an ambulance.

“The bus driver was just saying, ‘Oh no, oh no’.”

Asked by procurator fiscal depute Kevin Doherty where the bus driver had started to make the emergency stop, Mrs O’Neill replied: “More or less through the crossing.”

She added: “I expected something serious. I expected that the bus had hit him.”

PC Andrew Haggerty — who said he’d been called to the scene on a report that ‘a bus had hit a child’ on the morning of December 14, 2015 — told the court the boy ‘had no visible injuries’.

It is understood that there may be scope for solicitor Mr Keenan to make a submission that Mr Ross, of Weir Place in Greenock, has no case to answer as a result of the differences in the respective in charges put forward by the police and the Crown.

The trial, before Sheriff Craig Harris, has been adjourned part-heard and is due to resume on July 31.