Driver explains actions at Morcombe trial
A bus driver has told the Daniel Morcombe murder trial he was following orders when he didn’t stop for a boy matching Daniel’s description who tried to flag him down.
Daniel, 13, vanished while waiting for a bus at the Kiel Mountain Road overpass at Woombye on the Sunshine Coast on December 7, 2003.
Suncoast bus driver Ross Edmonds told the trial of the teen’s accused killer that his bus broke down shortly before the overpass that afternoon.
Mr Edmonds said duty controller Jeff Norman came to him with another driver and two new buses.
“Jeff told me, he said “you just go direct to Maroochydore, we’ll do the pickups,” he said.
Mr Edmonds said he saw a “young chap” in a red shirt and another “chap” under the overpass.
The court has heard Daniel was wearing a red T-shirt when he disappeared and several witnesses have described seeing a man standing near him under the overpass.
“He (the boy) lifted his finger … and I pointed to him (to indicate) there was another bus coming,” Mr Edmonds said.
The driver added that he told Mr Norman via radio there was someone waiting under the overpass and continued on.
“Jeff told me he would pick anyone up that was around,” he said.
Mr Norman earlier told the court his bus followed within two minutes of Mr Edmonds’ but when he passed the overpass he saw no one.
Meanwhile, a passenger on Mr Edmonds’ bus told the court she argued with the driver about his failure to pick up the boy.
Katherine Bird told the court she’d told the driver he should have stopped and they had an argument.
The driver told her she would be thrown off the bus if she didn’t sit down, she said.
Brett Peter Cowan, 44, has pleaded not guilty to murder, indecent treatment of a child and interfering with a corpse.
The trial in Brisbane Supreme Court continues.