Driver accused in UK road crash deaths of 8 Indians gets bail

A truck driver charged with causing the deaths of eight Indians last month in one of the UK's worst road accidents in decades was today granted conditional bail by a UK court.
David Wagstaff, charged with eight counts of causing death by dangerous driving and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, appeared before Milton Keynes Magistrates' Court today and was granted bail on the condition that he does not leave the UK without permission.
The 53-year-old will now appear alongside Ryszard Masierak, 31, who was remanded in custody to appear before Aylesbury Crown Court on September 26.

Masierak, a Polish national,is charged with eight counts of causing death by dangerous driving, eight counts of causing death by careless driving while over the prescribed alcohol limit and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
The bodies of the victims of the fatal collision, which took place on theM1motorway near Newport Pagnell in the early hours of August 26, have been repatriated to India.
The funeral rites for 33-year-old Karthikeyan Pugalur Ramasubramanian, and his 32-year-old wife Lavanyalakshmi Seetharaman; 63-year-old Panneerselvam Annamalai; 58-year-old Subramaniyan Arachelvan and his 50-year-old wife Tamilmani Arachelvan; 26-year-old Vivek Baskaran and 27-year-old Rishi Rajeev Kumar took place in Tamil Nadu and Kerala last week.

The owner and driver of the mini-bus in which the Indian software engineers and their friends and families were travelling, 52-year-old Cyriac Joseph, had his last rites in Nottingham - where the Kerala-born businessman was based for many years.

Shravathi Ramasubramanian, the four-year-old daughter ofKarthikeyan and Lavanyalakshmi who diedin the accident, is said to be "out of danger" but remains in hospital.
Mano Ranjan Panneerselvam, a Wipro employee who lost three of his colleagues in the crash, and his wife also remain in hospital.
Another elder relative of Mano Ranjan's family who had been severely injured in the collision is said to have been discharged from hospital.

"They are all on the road to recovery," said Jacob Ravibalan, chair of the World Tamil Organisation (UK) -- a group providing support on the ground.
Last week, an inquest by Coroner Tom Osborne at the Crownhill Crematorium site on Dansteed Way in Milton Keynes, southern England,had formally identified the victims of the crash as Indians based in the UK and their friends and relatives visiting them as tourists from India.
The group of 11 had been en route from Nottingham to London to catch a Eurostar train for a holiday in Europe at the time of the serious accident.

KarthikeyanRamasubramaniyam Pugalur, Rishi Rajeev Kumar, and Vivek Bhaskaranhad been identified by Indian software company Wipro as its employees who were among those killed in the deadly accident on a highway in Buckinghamshire, southern England, when the mini bus they were travelling in got crushed between two large trucks being driven by Wagstaff and Masierak.
The court was told that the latter had been twice the legal drink-drive limit in the UK at the time of the collision.