‘Madman’ coach driver jailed

JAILED . . . Brian Larrad

THE driver of a National Express coach has been jailed for driving “like a madman” while his passengers screamed and pleaded with him to stop.

Brian Larrad (53), of Raven Avenue, Chadderton, played an eight-mile nightmare game of cat and mouse with the driver of a car towing a caravan who he thought had failed to give way to him as he joined a motorway.

Some of Larrad’s 25 passengers were so frightened that they used their mobiles to call police for help.

And when the coach was eventually stopped, one of his passengers — who has since been cautioned for common assault — punched Larrad several times in the face, shouting that he had put his children in danger.

At Carlisle Crown Court yesterday, Larrad was jailed for a year after pleading guilty to dangerous driving.

He was also banned from driving for three years.

It was the second time he had appeared in court for road rage.

In 1999 he drove off in a 16-tonne lorry, swerving from side to side in an attempt to throw off a 61-year-old man who was clinging to the side.

Prosecutor Alan Lovett told the court yesterday that even as the coach left Manchester Airport on its way to Aberdeen last June, one of the passengers was worried about the way Larrad’s driving was causing other drivers to sound their horns.

But it was not until he left Carlisle that Larrad began what a judge described as an “appalling piece of driving” — apparently because he felt the car towing the caravan had failed to let him in when he joined the M6.

From then on Larrad played cat and mouse with the caravan, Mr Lovett said, overtaking it at 60mph, then pulling in front and dropping the coach’s speed to below 50mph, forcing the caravan to overtake again.

Then, he said, Larrad did the same thing again — three times — before the caravan pulled in front of him, forcing him on to the hard shoulder.

From there, Mr Lovett said, Larrad undertook the caravan, passing it on the inside as his passengers pleaded with him to stop.

“Passengers were clearly frightened and were shouting that he was endangering people’s lives. Children were crying,” Mr Lovett said.

One woman passenger later told the police: “Everyone was screaming and panicking.”

And another said: “I was very frightened it was a nightmare.”

The journey — along a stretch of motorway known as the Cumberland Gap, which links England and Scotland — was captured on a DVD recorded by the coach’s on-board camera.

When this was shown to the court, Judge Paul Batty QC said it was clear that Larrad had been intent on intimidating the driver of the car and caravan.

“This man was driving like a madman,” he said.

He said it was “entirely understandable” that the passenger had hit him.