Bus driver jailed after sex assaults

A bus driver who made lewd comments and sexually assaulted four young women and a schoolgirl was today jailed for four and a half years.

Mark Clark, 40, who was a driver for regional bus operator First, and then for Freestone's was also placed on the sex offenders' register for life and given a lifetime ban on working with children.

Clark was also made subject to a sexual offences prevention order for five years under which he must not have unsupervised contact with children under 16 apart from his own children.

Clark, of Rambling Cottage, Billingford, denied 12 offences of indecently touching the five females but was convicted following a trial at Norwich Crown Court.

The court heard how he groped the bottom of one passenger, a student at West Anglia College in King's Lynn, as she passed him on the bus and he had also touched another student's breast. He also pulled in a lay-by and indecently touched a schoolgirl when she was the only passenger on the bus.

The court heard that following his conviction Clark had since lost his job as a bus driver.

Sentencing him, Judge Simon Barham, said Clark was in breach of trust when he carried out the assault on the young girls who were passengers on his bus or coach.

He added: “You also made numerous remarks of a sexual nature.”

He said one of the young females sexually assaulted was a schoolgirl and added: “You took advantage of her and assaulted her on the coach.”

David Wilson, mitigating, said Clark was of previous good character. The defendant has lost a great deal. He has lost his job, something he has done for a large number of years. He's lost his property and he's lost his liberty. It's going to be a difficult time in custody. He is not someone who will flourish in prison.