M1 Crash Driver Jailed

The driver of a coach that overturned at an M1 service station has been jailed.

Leslie Weinberg, 35, has been sentenced to 10 months imprisonment and disqualified for four years.

He has also been fined £500 and disqualified for two years for dangerous driving, to run concurrently with the four-year ban for drink-driving.

Aylesbury Crown Court heard that Weinberg was driving the National Express coach on September 3 last year, when it tipped over a slip road and crashed into a tree and lampost at Newport Pagnell Services on the M1.

Weinberg had a drink-drive reading of 145mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood.

It is understood he had returned from holiday the day before the crash and had stayed up drinking all night.

He then drove the coach on a regular service from Birmingham to Stansted Airport, the court heard.

After overtaking a lorry on the approach to a junction on the motorway, he cut to the inside lane, but mistook the entry road to the service station for a slip road off the motorway and crashed.

Most of the 33 passengers escaped without serious injury although, one passenger, Christopher Rusbridge, broke bones in his head, chest, arms and legs.

A further seven passengers suffered more serious injuries and one man had his arm amputated.

The driver, Mr Weinberg had to be cut free from the wreckage.

Weinberg, of West Bromwich, previously pleaded guilty to the charges of driving dangerously and driving with excess alcohol.

Roads Policing Inspector Robert Jarrett said that "drinking and driving is a crime" and "there can be no excuses".

"If you do it, you risk your licence, your job and your liberty," he said.

(DS)