ABU DHABI // Those accused of responsibility for a three-year-old girl dying while locked in a school bus are due to appear in court on Wednesday.
The bus driver and supervisor have been charged by Public Prosecution with being responsible for the girl’s death by neglecting their duties.
A school employee is accused of neglect for not checking a list of pupils’ names as they left the bus to see if any were missing.
School management is charged with not investigating why the girl was absent from class. The transport firm is accused of endangering the pupils’ safety with buses that did not adhere to safety laws and were not licensed for schoolchildren.
The driver and supervisor were also allegedly not licensed for school bus duties, and the transport company owner is charged with hiring supervisors he had not sponsored.
Public Prosecution said the driver claimed he found the girl lying motionless behind the bus exit door at 11.45am as he was taking the bus home.
He denied the charges but admitted to parking the bus after the pupils got off without checking that it was empty.
Prosecutors said the supervisor claimed that after the bus arrived at the school, she checked that the pupils had gone, but only walked to the middle of the bus, not the far end. She insisted she handed over the list of pupils to school authorities. The prosecution said the school employee told them checking the attendance list was not her usual job, and that she did not check it that day.
hdajani@thenational.ae
