A Stagecoach driver ignored pleas to stop despite being told a schoolboy had been hit by his bus, witnesses told the North Shore District Court yesterday.
Kereopa Te Waru Puru, 51, pleaded not guilty at a depositions hearing to a charge of failing to stop driving after an accident.
The charge relates
to the death of 12-year-old Matthew Scott Taylor, who died after being hit by the "bendy" bus Puru was driving on May 10.
Three Murrays Bay Intermediate pupils told the court how Matthew's bag was caught in a rear door as he tried to leave the bus on the North Shore's Browns Bay Road.
"He looked frightened and scared, he was looking around ... he tried to lunge forward," a 12-year-old boy told the hearing.
Another witness watched Matthew run along the side of the moving bus with his bag still trapped. When it eventually came loose, Matthew lost his footing and disappeared under the rear wheel of the bus.
"We felt a huge bump and we looked out the window and we saw Matthew lying on the road," the witness said.
Matthew had been carrying a box of chocolates to sell for a school fundraising project at the time of the accident.
Three of the six witnesses called by police prosecutor Sergeant Roger Stevens testified that students on the bus "yelled" at Puru, telling him of the accident and asking him to stop driving.
"Everybody starting screaming, 'Stop, you've run over somebody' ... It was quite loud," a 12-year-old girl said.
"He just kept his eyes on the road and kept driving."
A 13-year-old witness said Puru might not have heard the students as the bus was quite noisy, but Puru continued to drive even after at least two students approached him about the accident.
"He [Puru] said, 'Oh shit, did I?' then he asked me how my day was and I think that was it."
A 12-year-old witness said some pupils were too "frightened" to leave their seats to tell Puru about the accident because "the bus driver would tell students off for talking and standing up."
Yesterday's depositions were heard before Justices of the Peace Barrie Evans and Bill Lemberg. A date will be set for Puru's trial in the Auckland District Court on November 30.
Anthony Rogers is representing Puru.
