Wellington Quay Bus Verdict

RedPlanet wrote:

According to one of the broadsheets today, Dublin Bus's internal inquiry identified driver error as the cause of the accident

redPlanet wrote:

now that he walked.

Bus tragedy remains a mystery despite inquiry
From:The Irish Independent
Sunday, 25th February, 2007

KENNETH HENVEY, a 51-year old Dublin Bus driver with an excellent record, lived for almost three years with criminal charges hanging over him.

The families of the five people killed by a bus with Mr Henvey at the wheel have coped since 2004 with their huge loss. Any hope that the criminal case would explain what happened, and why, collapsed last week in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Those who died in the accident at Wellington Quay, Dublin, in February 2004, were Kathleen Gilton, 69, of Newtown, Maynooth, Co Kildare; Teresa Keatley, 43, of Sillogue Avenue, Ballymun; Margaret Traynor, 59, of Tulip Court, Darndale; Kevin Garry, 43, of Riverdale, Leixlip, Co Kildare; and Vasyl Tyminskyy, 33, of Kew Park Avenue, Lucan, Co Dublin.

The accident seemed inexplicable. Mr Henvey had 13 years experience as a bus driver, he had not taken drink or drugs, he was a stable, responsible man. The bus, which was in proper mechanical order, surged forward on to the pavement, and within seconds it had ploughed through around 30 people waiting to board another bus.

Gardai examined every inch of ground at the scene. For the best part of two weeks, lawyers, witnesses and experts minutely examined everything known about the few seconds in which it all occurred.

In the absence of any obvious technical fault, the prosecution argued that it was driver error. The defence argued that it had to be an engine surge that made the bus jump forward, independent of Mr Henvey. The defence could produce drivers who testified to experiencing such surges.

The case came to centre on technical evidence produced by a Swedish engineer, Marcus Fasth, from Volvo, the engine makers. He downloaded information contained in a part of the engine called an electronic control unit (ECU). This material, since it kept a record of everything the bus experienced, would be the best evidence as to whether there was a power surge.

Oddly enough, it wasn't recovered from the ECU until last December, two years and 10 months after the accident.

By then, the decision had long been made to prosecute Mr Henvey on a charge of dangerous driving causing death. The prosecution got the results of the evaluation of the ECU material just three days before the case opened in Court 24.

As it happened, in downloading the material Mr Fasth had mixed it up with material from a South African bus of a wholly different type. The evidence given to the court was useless. But no one noticed that at first. In fact, the meaningless figures produced in evidence in the second week of the trial damaged the prosecution case more than they helped.

Apart from questions about the reliability of the evidence, the defence argued there was room within the ECU figures for short power surges to go unrecorded.

Since power surges are known to happen, since the prosecution could not definitively rule out a power surge, Mr Henvey was acquitted. A nightmare that plagued a decent man for three years had lifted - though the experience of what happened that day is unlikely to ever fade.

For the families of the victims, the case brought no answers. The lack of definitive evidence proving a power surge, and the lack of evidence of driver error, wraps the reason for their loss in even deeper mystery.

Gene Kerrigan