Driver in French coach crash may face charges

The driver of the Scottish coach that overturned on a French motorway, killing a schoolgirl, was put under formal investigation for manslaughter yesterday.

Mark Chisholm, 31, from Edinburgh, was told in his hospital bed by prosecutors that they will also ask the judge investigating the crash to consider charges of accidental wounding and negligence.

The coach, with 43 pupils from Largs Academy in Ayrshire, rolled over at a motorway junction near Dijon in eastern France early on Monday. Police said yesterday that Katherine Fish, 15, who died in the crash, was crushed under the vehicle as she was thrown through a window. She was not wearing a seatbelt.

Six pupils and three teachers remain in hospital with serious injuries, including Mark Nicol, 14, who has been in a coma since the collision.

Jean-Pierre Alacchi, state prosecutor for Dijon, said the one-year-old coach may have swerved after the driver realised he had mistakenly turned on to a slip road on the A6 motorway.

He said alcohol tests on the driver had proved negative.