Police ordered to pay Stagecoach costs
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• Sandbach magistrates have ordered Cheshire police to pay £400 towards defence costs when Perth-based Stagecoach driver Joseph McLeod was cleared of driving a coach on the M6 without due care and attention.
McLeod, of 11 Gary Place, Bankfoot, Perthshire, denied driving the coach without due care and attention on December 21, failing to stop after an accident and failing to report an accident.
The driver of a van, David Feeley and his passenger John Simpson, claimed that McLeod's coach cut in front of them, striking the offside wing of the van.
They were in the middle lane overtaking a slow moving vehicle when they were overtaken by two coaches. The second coach cut in too early and caught the wing of the van.
They noticed the word "Stagecoach" illuminated in the rear window and that the registration number contained the letters T and G. They estimated the speed of the coach at 113 to 121km/h (7075mph). The coach disappeared from view and they travelled 16 to 24km (10-15 miles) before catching up with it again when they noticed that the registration number was A800 TGG.
McLeod said he had been driving buses and coaches for 33 years. He had been driving a Volvo coach on a journey from Glasgow to London following another Stagecoach vehicle.
He did not recall any accident and if there had been any impact he would have felt it through the steering wheel.
Neither he nor the police could find any mark on the coach at all. There were three or four Stagecoach coaches on the route that night.
The company had other coaches with similar registration numbers which ran in sequence. He thought there was one numbered A799 TGG.
Patrick McKnight, defending, said the description of the coach given by the occupants of the van could fit several vehicles. There was no evidence of any damage to McLeod's coach.