An employment tribunal has ruled a bus driver, sacked after a crash, was unfairly dismissed - and heard that poor training was a factor in the smash.

Robert Corrin took the Department of Infrastructure to the tribunal after he was fired following the incident in which a bus crashed into a house in Onchan on July 28, 2018.

Mr Corrin had been driving the Mercedes Citaro single-decker bus at about 8.45am when he encountered a problem with the electronic destination blind. He parked the bus on a hill using the hold-brake, but neglected to put on the handbrake.

He went to the rear of the bus and turned off the isolator switch which, to his surprise, deactivated the hold-brake, and the bus then began to roll backwards.

Mr Corrin attempted to stop the bus but he was unable to. It rolled backwards down Highfield Crescent and through a traffic lights junction, crashing into a house, a parked pick-up truck and caused damage to a garage. The collision started a gas leak but there was no explosion.

The damage caused came to about £50,000.

Following an internal investigation, Mr Corrin was dismissed for gross misconduct by Bus Vannin.

He later appealed that to transport boss Ian Longworth, who rejected it and upheld the firing.

However, the tribunal, chaired by Douglas Stewart, has ruled that ’flaws in the investigation process led to the unjust conclusion of summary dismissal’.

It added: ’With an adequate investigation, that outcome of summary dismissal would or should have been different.’

During the tribunal, the panel heard that Mr Corrin’s use of the isolator-switch ’was a regular occurrence among drivers’, of which Mr Longworth nor his successor Ian Bates was aware.

Mr Longworth told the tribunal that Mr Corrin was not entitled to touch the isolator switch without instruction from his supervisor or an inspector who he could have contacted by radio.

He added that in his view Mr Corrin had ’gone totally against his training’, which Mr Longworth had also undertaken.

An internal investigation into the crash was led by senior transport supervisor Tara Cawte. But Ms Cawte’s interview notes involving two independent drivers, David Johnston and Paul Voss, could not be located.

The tribunal report said: ’Such information, which was unquestionably critical of training by Bus Vannin, was potentially central to the issues that the tribunal had to determine.’

However, it was possible for the tribunal to say that Mr Corrin had told Ms Cawte that staff ’had been given no in-depth training and that it had been more of a short assessment around Douglas to make you aware of the length of the bus’.

Ms Cawte’s notes also said: ’On August 2 I spoke to David Johnston and Paul Voss regarding their recollection of training when Citaros were first implemented. Both stated that familiarisation was short and emphasised more on the length of the bus rather than the controls.’

Furthermore, Constable Richard Goldie, said: ’During my investigation of the case it became apparent that there had been a lack of training given to the drivers in relation to the use of any new equipment.

’There also appear to be a lack of communication with drivers in relation to disseminating any issues with them and there was a reliance on the use of a notice board in the foyer area.

’It appeared that there had been no training given to a feature fitted to the Mercedes bus, known as a hold-brake.’

In coming to its conclusion, the panel was critical of the investigation led by Ms Cawte and missing information which ’tainted the entire process’.

The panel also noted that while Mr Longworth and Mr Bates believed in good faith that only engineers were using the isolator switch, evidence was found it was regularly being used by drivers and even cleaning staff when the buses were at the depot.

In its conclusions, the tribunal ruled that Mr Longworth’s decision to uphold the firing of Mr Corrin was ’within the band of reasonable responses’ and that ’because the handbrake hadn’t been applied, the finding of gross misconduct should stand’.

However, as a result of what the report said was a ’flawed’ investigation, Mr Corrin not being presented with all the facts which came from that investigation, including Constable Goldie’s comments on inadequate training and his record as a model employee, it said that Mr Corrin could have kept his job despite the crash.

While his dismissal has been ruled to be unfair, the tribunal has not yet awarded Mr Corrin any money. A hearing will be fixed if the two parties cannot agree a settlement.