Daughter of pensioner Dora Hancox killed by 'dangerous bus driver' says 'it will happen again'
The daughter of a pensioner who was killed by a bus being driven "dangerously" by a 77-year-old with dementia, has said her mother "didn't stand a chance" and called for a change in the law to stop bus companies "getting away with neglect".
On Tuesday, a jury ruled Kailash Chander was driving dangerously when he killed 76-year-old Dora Hancox and seven-year-old Rowan Fitzgerald when he crashed into a Sainsbury's supermarket.
In an emotional interview with ITV News, Ms Hancox's daughter, Wendy Hancox, said the circumstances of her mother's death was "unfair".
She added: "Even more so knowing he should't have been driving.
"If he had been stopped before then she'd still be here."
Ms Hancox said there needed to be a change in the law to ensure bus companies pay closer attention to the health of their employees in a bid to stop something similar happening again.
A six-day trial at Birmingham Crown Court was told Chander had been warned about his "erratic" driving by bus company Midland Red after four crashes in the previous three years.
The former mayor of Leamington Spa had worked for more than 70 hours in the week leading up to the accident, which saw him drive "full throttle" for almost 82 metres.
He had also been the subject of eight warning letters after his braking, accelerating and speed were monitored, and he had been referred to the bus company's driving school.
Chander, who mistook the accelerator for the brake before the smash in Coventry in October 2015, was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial due to post-traumatic stress disorder and frontal lobe dementia.
The 80-year-old, who was 77 at the time of the crash, was excused from attending a "finding-of-facts" trial after psychiatrists said he would be unable to give evidence or instruct lawyers with regard to the crash.
When asked who she blamed for the death of her mother, Ms Hancox said "him [the driver] and the bus company".
She also warned "it will happen again" and called for a "change in the law".
She told ITV News: "There needs to be more enforcement into these companies to stop them getting away with neglect, with not watching who they employ and their health.
"There's too many people that don't care and just see it as a job."
Calling for a change in the law
Breaking down in tears as she described the circumstances around her mother's death, Wendy Hancox said: "She didn't deserve to die, she didn't deserve to die like that.
"You expect old age, being ill, not in those circumstances.
She added: "To be mowed down by a bus, she didn't have a chance.
"At least if you have an illness you have a chance to fight it, but they took that away from her. She didn't stand a chance."
"She didn't deserve to die".