A spurned lover who ploughed an 18-tonne coach into his ex-boyfriend’s ground-floor flat after their seven-year relationship broke down has been spared jail.
Ian Anderson, 33, drove the single-decker bus straight at the home of Jason Vasey in a revenge attack that yielded more than £23,000 worth of damage.
Newcastle Crown Court heard how Anderson, a yardman at Liberty Coaches, wanted to ’embarrass’ his former partner, ‘make a point’ and ‘call him out’ after taking issue with him following their split.
He took a coach without permission from the company’s depot in Cramlington in Northumberland on January 21 last year before driving to nearby Ashington.
Lucy Todd, prosecuting, said Mr Vasey was lying in bed when he heard ‘loud tooting’. Mr Vasey then watched Anderson drove towards his social housing flat ‘at speed’.
Windows were broken, a radiator flew from the wall and onto the floor, and structural damage resulted from the collision.
Anderson was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting criminal damage and aggravated vehicle taking.
Recorder Alan Toby Hedworth KC, told him: ‘You wanted to make a scene and to cause embarrassment to your former partner, Mr Vasey.
‘You can make a scene with your ex-partner, you can try and embarrass them if that’s what you want to do – but you don’t do it with someone else’s extremely expensive property.
‘This was a ludicrously irresponsible, stupid and childish thing to do.
‘But you weren’t doing it with toys, you were doing it with very expensive property – both the coach and the flat.’
After slamming the coach into the block of flats in Manley View, Anderson got out of the driver’s seat and proceeded to hurl fragments of glass at Mr Vasey and ordered him to ‘get outside’.
He later called his superiors at Liberty Coaches to apologise, telling a manager that he had ‘some bus in my leg’.
The damage to the flats was £23,834. The coach firm’s bill to repair the bus totalled more than £22,000.
Glenn Reardon, defending Anderson, said: ‘His account remains that he didn’t wish to cause any harm to anyone.
‘Clearly, he didn’t evaluate the risks posed doing what he did. He wanted to embarrass, make a point and call out his ex-partner who he had taken issue with.’
Judge Hedworth replied: ‘He has embarrassed himself rather than his former partner.’
He added: ‘The breakdown of your relationship after seven years with your former partner, Jason, led to you failing to be able to cope, effectively not being able to give up on that relationship, and not being able to accept that he may wish to have other people in his life.’
Anderson, of Boldon, South Tyneside, who also admitted dangerous driving, was handed a restraining order to stay away from his former partner.
He was ordered to make a financial contribution to the losses incurred by Liberty Coaches and housing provider Bernicia.
This country has gone bonkers. You can get locked up for a few hurty words on social media, but people like this man get away with what he did.
They say ‘there’s no woman like a woman scorned.’ However, this man took it to the extreme by trying to make a point. He stole a coach and intentionally crashed it into a building. Perhaps he was just having a bad day! We all have bad days, but we don’t rob a coach and purposely slam it into a building.
He was given a suspended sentence, so he effectively got away with the crime that he committed. What in God’s name is wrong with our justice system? It was hardly a deterrent.
I can’t imagine why they broke up. He seems like a completely reasonable fellow – seriously? Now lock him up, or was he one of our protected species?
This was just another massive childish response to a relationship breakup. It wasn’t a prank; it was an attack with an 18-tonne coach, and the judge should give his head a wobble.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 