Bus driver cleared of death by dangerous driving after pedestrian killed on pavement (17/8/10)

A bus driver who knocked down and killed a pedestrian on a pavement has been cleared of causing death by careless driving.

Luigi Albertelli, 49, of Woodlands Park Road, South Tottenham, was behind the wheel of a Route 141 double-decker bus when he hit father-of-four Ibrahim Tejan in Moorgate, central London, in August last year.

Mr Tejan, 50, was taken to the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, after hitting his head on the pavement but died from his injuries 16 days later on September 2.

Mr Albertelli, who passed his bus drivers’ test in 2009, had been checking his mirrors after passing a stretch of roadworks, the Old Bailey heard.

Nicola Merrick, prosecuting, said: “His bus was overhanging the pavement and he drove forward for a distance, for several seconds, with the bus overhanging the pavement.”

Albertelli said it was impossible to avoid the tip of the bus hanging over the pavement and that he was pre-occupied checking that the back end avoided hitting a traffic island.

He told police: “I was doing what I should have been doing – looking at my offside mirror for a split second. I can’t manoeuvre in there without doing that.

“As I’m looking in my offside mirror to straighten my bus up, the next thing I hear is a loud bang and I look at my nearside – that’s when I see the gentleman sort of spinning and turning on to the floor.

He added: “The gap was very tight, so I had to slow down and bring my bus into the gap – I had to put the front end of my bus on the pavement.”

Mr Albertelli denied causing death by careless driving and was cleared after a week-long trial.