Bus driver Brett Button will be an old man when he can regain his freedom after causing one of Australia’s deadliest road crashes.

Button, 59, was sentenced on Wednesday to 32 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 24 years, for killing 10 passengers and injuring 25.

Those involved had been celebrating a young couple’s wedding in the NSW Hunter Valley when Button sped up to a roundabout while impaired by an opioid painkiller.

Judge Roy Ellis had foreshadowed a lengthy sentence at the start of the three-day hearing in Newcastle District Court, despite misgivings of survivors and families of the fatalities about prosecutors dropping manslaughter charges against Button.

Afterwards, Leoni Bowey, whose sister Nadene McBridge and 22-year-old niece Kyah died in the crash, said she was surprised by the “tremendous” sentence but it would never bring them back.

“Our lives have changed forever,” Bowey said.

Her daughter Ameliah expressed similar sentiment about the sentence.

“We all went into that courtroom knowing that nothing that judge did would bring our loved ones back,” she said.

“Addiction is a disease, I’ll admit that, but no matter what he was still responsible for all those lives, for being the one to bring all those people home and he had to take accountability for that.”

Before being sentenced, Button told the court of his sorrow and shame.

“I can’t forgive myself. I can’t believe I caused this. I never meant to cause this,” he said.

“I truly wish it never happened.”

Button claimed he had been using Tramadol to relieve pain since 1994 and had developed a tolerance to the opioid.

“I wouldn’t have taken it if I thought it was a risk to my driving ability,” he said.

He had taken 350 milligrams of Tramadol on the day, when doctors told him the daily maximum dose was 200 milligrams.

He had pleaded guilty to 10 charges of dangerous driving causing death, nine counts of driving causing grievous bodily harm and 16 counts of causing bodily harm by wanton driving, after prosecutors agreed to drop the manslaughter charges.

Jacqui Varasdi, mother of Zachary Bray who died in the crash, was among those who criticised the decision to downgrade the charges.

“He knowingly overmedicated and chose to drive under those conditions, putting countless lives at risk and destroying so many,” she told the court.

Button lost control of the bus taking 35 wedding guests from the Wandin Valley Estate to Singleton about 11.30pm on June 11, 2023, after accelerating into a roundabout on Wine Country Drive at Greta in thick fog.

Those who died were: Darcy Bulman, Nadene McBride and her daughter, Kyah, Kane Symons, Andrew Scott and his wife Lynan, Zach Bray, Angus Craig, Tori Cowburn and Rebecca Mullen.