Coach crash driver drink charge

Jan 28 2008 By Steve Johnson

A DRIVER from the Black Country who was at the wheel of a coach which crashed and overturned, leaving six people seriously injured, was today charged by police.

Leslie Darryl Weinberg, 35, of Meyrick Road, Black Lake, West Bromwich, is accused of drink-driving and dangerous driving. He has been ordered to appear before magistrates at Milton Keynes on February 12.

Mr Weinberg was driving a coach which crashed at Newport Pagnell Services on the M1 motorway on September 3.

Road policing officers, who have been investigating the horror smash which left 12 people needing hospital treatment, including a 61-year-old man from Kenilworth and a 28-year-old man from Coventry, charged Mr Weinberg when he answered his bail today at Milton Keynes police station.

Mr Weinberg, who lives with his wheelchair-bound wife Kendra and their two children, was driving the coach from Birmingham's Digbeth coach station to Luton and Stansted airports when the crash happened.

He was suspended by his bosses following the crash, investigated by Thames Valley Police.

Mr Weinberg had to be cut free from the wreckage of the single-decker coach after the crash and was taken to Northampton General Hospital along with 11 passengers.