Man jailed for causing bus to crash into family home making it ‘unliveable’

A 22-year-old man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after colliding with a bus, causing it to crash into a home, making it ‘unliveable’.

Lawrence Salaou, of no fixed address, appeared at Bristol Crown Court today (April 20) after pleading guilty to dangerous driving. The court heard how, on December 15, last year, Salaou was driving a VW Golf at speed through a 20mph zone, through a red light and struck a bus, which then veered off the road and collided with a house on Highridge Road, Bishopsworth.

BristolWorld spoke with Hayden and Kay Rich who lived at the address and described the impact as “a bomb going off”. The couple were in the lounge watching television, while their son Joshua was in his bedroom upstairs before the double-decker bus slammed into the house. No one was seriously injured though the house required an estimated £300,000-worth of repairs.

Officers from the force's Operation Remedy team worked hard to carry out CCTV and forensic enquiries, using blood from the airbag to identify Salaou as the driver. His passenger was also identified and arrested before being released without charge. Salou and his passenger left the scene on foot, leaving the car.

Operation Remedy Insp Steve Davey said: "The manner in which Salaou was driving was dangerous and it's very fortunate that nobody was injured in the collision.

"However, the incident has left a family displaced and without a home for a number of months, as the condition of their home can only be described as unliveable.

"We hope that this sentence serves as a deterrent to anyone thinking of driving dangerously on our roads and provides justice to those who were on the bus and who own the badly damaged house."