Bus driver jailed after death crash

Oct 11 2006

A BLACK Country man who caused a road crash in which a teenage girl from Devon died when he drove his bus on the wrong side of the road has been jailed for two years.

Judge John Neligan, sentencing Robert Botur at Exeter Crown Court, said Anita Quartly's family may find the sentence "derisory," but he had to sentence according to the facts.

Anita Quartly, 17, a passenger on the bus, died when it hit an oncoming car, went through a hedge on a country road and crashed into a field.

Botur, 35, from Tipton in the West Midlands, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing the death of Miss Quartly by dangerous driving.

Exeter Crown Court heard that Botur, driving a bus unsupervised for the first time since being since being recruited from Poland, travelled for about 500 metres on the wrong side of the road before he hit an oncoming car.

Botur, a Polish national, was also banned from driving for four years, and ordered to take an extended test before driving in this country again.

After the case Anita's parents, Dawn and Mark Quartly, from Chulmleigh, Devon, who described Anita, a student, as the family "star", said: "We are disgusted with the leniency of the sentence.

"How can the taking of our daughter's life equate to this inadequately short term of imprisonment?

"We consider there needs to be more stringent legislation to regulate and enforce the required standards of driving, and especially the drivers of public service vehicles within the UK."

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