Ex-nursery school head indicted over 5-year-old boy's death in bus

They should get life in prison, however they will probably get some joke sentence of 5year.

God, I can only imagine the heartbreak for all involved but the parents ... it doesn't bear thinking about.

Actually it does bear thinking about.

No they should not get life in prison. This was an accident; there is a case to answer for negligence, and punishment may be appropriate but this remains an unintentional act. Life might have been appropriate if they had locked the poor child in the bus as some kind of punishment, but let's not forget that these are human beings likely traumatized by their mistake.

This was an accident; there is a case to answer for negligence, and punishment may be appropriate but this remains an unintentional act

They're still 'professionals' with a duty of care, not charity workers.

Custodial - not suspended - sentence, please.

They should be sentenced but knowing that this was unintentional.

In this country, you see Mothers kill their children and get only 6 years.

These Mothers deserve life in prison.

Can you just imagine the guilt and pain that these two are feeling? That is

a sentence in itself. There is no amount of apologies that is going to make

it better for the families.

Sentence yes but take a very close look at how it happened.

Poor kid. When my mother divorced with me as a tot, she put me in with a neighbor who lived across a busy street before she went to work, and I had to take a school bus. One day, the bus pickup location was changed but I wasn't informed. I still remember: Sitting there. Just sitting and waiting. Children do not react well when routines are inexplicably altered. Fortunately, some good Samaritan spotted me and drove me to school. Then I got a lecture about not taking rides from strangers.

Dealing with children is fraught with difficulties. Oft one is damned if one does, damned if one doesn't.

ADK99Today  10:19 am JST

No they should not get life in prison. This was an accident; there is a case to answer for negligence, and punishment may be appropriate but this remains an unintentional act. Life might have been appropriate if they had locked the poor child in the bus as some kind of punishment, but let's not forget that these are human beings likely traumatized by their mistake.

Let's not forget that the people first and foremost traumatized by the 'mistake' are the parents of the child who died a horrible and completely unnecessary death.

When you work with children, there are added responsibilities and pressures. More reason to be very organized and face particular attention to procedures and processes.

I have zero sympathy for the school employees. A simple procedure called a Headcount could've easily prevented this. A final sweep of the bus is also standard. Finally, it's hard to believe that nobody in the school noticed a missing student for over nine hours. Looks like they don't even take attendance. This is criminal negligence and long prison sentences are justified.

Terrible story to read, can't believe people taking care of children could have so little care, anything that can mean a child may lost their lives merits a couple of extra checks, it doesn't even takes that much time.

Matthew HopkinsToday  12:27 pm JST

Miles - Parents do tend to change attendance at the last minute. However a count of on/off the bus and a quick sweep to check bus is empty seems not to have been done. The question would be why and if it was part of the daily routine.

As for noticing if a child is missing that may take a littlle time to work out but definitely within the first hour. My experience with slightly older kids has them arriving in dribs and drabs with phone calls from parents regarding non-attendance. If a child is expected but did not arrive then a phone-call is made by the teacher to the parent but as said does take time.

Yes. Parents do change attendance sometimes at the last minute. At my son's school, it's the responsibility of the parents to notify the school.

Time is critical in this kind of situation. If they had found him after 2 -3 hours, he most likely would still be alive. But he was missing for nine hours! Nine! That is inexcusable and criminal.

This is one of those things where they really need to "dummy proof" the system.

My youngest is a kindergarten student. A lot of the students are bused in. In addition to having strict "human" controls - in addition to a driver they also have a teacher sit with the kids during the bus rounds so you've got a person whose sole job is to keep an eye on the kids (and not mainly on driving, etc), they've also got a very simple piece of physical infrastructure that would prevent a human error like this from being fatal. After they drop the students off, they park the bus in a spot that has a roof over it.

I think the purpose of the roof isn't safety, but rather just to keep the buses cooler for when they have to drive the kids home in the afternoon, but it also serves that safety function. A kid left on a bus under a roof for a few hours on a hot summer day would likely survive, while one left under the sun would almost certainly die.

It was tragic and horrible but it was an accident.

There’s no apparent criminal negligence. They didn’t go partyin or drinking adter they forgot the boy.

How hard is it to check the bus before locking it? It is without any doubt a criminal negligence charge. It's sad that they stopped the pick up service. The parents of the other children have been put in great hardship because of it. All they have to do is check the bus before they lock it. Is it really that hard? Gees!

but let's not forget that these are human beings likely traumatized by their mistake.

Yes poor traumatised human beings we should let them go they suffer enough already...

It was driver - head of nursery DUTY responsibility to check thr bus. It was her duty to collect the BUS CARDS. From other source:

Police determined that the school head did not collect bus cards to check children’s attendance or absence at the time they boarded in the morning.

So don't give me this traumatised, poor thing story.

People here seem oddly confused.

Negligence is not malice.

Broken duty of care is not intent.

What happened was an accident. A tragic accident? Yes. A preventable accident? Almost certainly.

But the tragedy of the situation doesn’t change what it was. An accident.

The people responsible will receive a punishment commensurate with their crime. Negligence leading to death is not the same as murder.

This sounds like a tragic accident. It doesn’t seem like the two involved intentionally left the child on board the bus… but there clearly was some negligence. Did the school not notice that the boy was not in attendance even though the bus picked him up?

The people responsible will receive a punishment commensurate with their crime. Negligence leading to death is not the same as murder.

To binary thinkers it is. Binary thinking is the inability to think beyond two possibilities, A or B, black or white, left or right, republican or democrat. To binary thinkers, if the child died, and there was fault, it's murder with intent, as they aren't able to comprehend that it was:

An accident.

An advanced country with a proper rule of law would hold an Inquest before indicting people for an accident where there is no intent.

An advanced country with a proper rule of law would hold an Inquest before indicting people for an accident where there is no intent.

Just because there was no intent, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a crime committed. Accidents can still be crimes, if the accident was the result of negligence. This unfortunate situation wasn’t the result of malice afterthought, but neither was it the result of unavoidable change. While this person did not intend to kill this child, she is still responsible for his death and will be held to account at trial.

Just because there was no intent, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a crime committed. Accidents can still be crimes, if the accident was the result of negligence. This unfortunate situation wasn’t the result of malice afterthought, but neither was it the result of unavoidable change. While this person did not intend to kill this child, she is still responsible for his death and will be held to account at trial.

Nice explanation of the difference between negligence resulting in death, and murder.

Of course, the binary thinkers with a limited intellect, who are only able to see in terms of either "murder" or "not murder" will be unable to comprehend this, and will think she should be hung for murder.