The coach driver whose brakes failed on Kirkstone Pass has been jailed for nine months after a court heard the harrowing accounts of elderly passengers who were injured as it careered out of control, crashed into a garden wall and toppled onto its side.

More than a dozen members of a North East Women’s Institute were seriously injured in the crash, on June 8, 2002. Frederick Messenger, an Advanced Driving Instructor who ran his own two-vehicle private hire firm, failed to see a sign prohibiting vehicles wider than 6ft 6in as he turned into the pass to descend ‘The Struggle’ towards Ambleside.

His 18-year-old single-decker, with 43 passengers, was more than eight feet wide and hit two cars as its brakes failed on the 1 in 5 gradient.

A police examiner found the footbrake was five per cent efficient. The legal limit is 50 per cent.

Messenger, 54, of Larchwood Drive, Ashington, Northumberland, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and driving with defective brakes at an earlier hearing and appeared at Carlisle Crown Court last week for sentencing.

Several of his relatives sobbed in the public gallery as statements from many of the injured passengers were read to the hearing.

One woman clung to her sister and “waited for the inevitable” as the coach picked up speed down the pass.

“I thought I was going to die. I don’t know how I didn’t,” she wrote.

Another said: “We began to pick up speed and there was an awful smell of burning rubber and the floor began to heat up. The heat was so intense I feared the floor was going to set fire.” Another witness told how Messenger’s son, a former policeman, who was on the coach shouted at his father to use the handbrake and recalled the driver replying: “I haven’t got any.” Sentencing Messenger, Mr Recorder Kevin Talbot praised him and his son for their rescue efforts after the coach crashed.

He told Messenger, a former miner: “Both you and your son did all you possibly could to rescue the passengers, freeing them from the wreckage and bringing them out to safety at no little risk to yourselves.

“They had no doubt been looking forward to the trip for some time and must have anticipated an enjoyable day out in the Lake District.

“In the event, it turned out to be a nightmare for each and every one of them.

“Only good fortune prevented loss of life.” He said Messenger had set out on the day trip without carrying out a proper safety check on his vehicle, had failed to see the restriction sign and then pressed on in a “hopeless situation” instead of stopping and reversing with the help of his son.

He told Messenger he gave him credit for pleading guilty at the first opportunity and saving elderly and frail witnesses from having to give evidence at a trial, and for his previous impeccable record and impressive written testimonials to his character supplied to the court, but had no alternative to sending him to prison.

“The message must go out to drivers of public service vehicles that putting lives at risk cannot be tolerated,” he said.

In mitigation, Michael Scholes said Messenger’s business had been destroyed by the crash and he had sold his vehicles at a loss.

Messenger was also banned from driving for three years.