Bus driver’s seven chilling words before killing 10 wedding guests in horror crash

A DRUGGED-UP bus driver uttered seven haunting words before killing 10 wedding guests in a horror crash.

Disgraced Brett Andrew Button, 60, will remain behind bars for at least two decades after a desperate bid to be released early was refused.

High on painkillers, Button was driving too fast when his bus carrying wedding guests in Australia‘s Hunter Valley tipped on its side and slid along a guard rail of a roundabout.

The passengers were returning from wedding celebrations in the popular wine region when the horror smash took the lives of 10 of their loved ones and injured 25 more.

All 35 passengers onboard were either killed or injured, making it one of Australia’s deadliest bus crashes.

Survivors said they were blissfully unaware of the nightmare about to unfold on the evening of 11 June 2023 following wedding celebrations of loved-up couple Mitchell Gaffney and Maddy Edsell.

“This next part’s going to be fun”, are the words Button said as he hit the accelerator into the roundabout and sped around the turn.

Button got behind the wheel after taking a large amount of Tramadol – a powerful drug which can cause drowsiness, brain fog and poor vision – earlier that day but said that he did not realise he was impaired.

Initially charged with manslaughter, he instead pleaded guilty to a string of dangerous driving offences after taking a prosecution deal and received a 32-year sentence with a 24-year non-parole period.

On Friday, Button’s appeal to reduce his sentence was dismissed by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.

Button’s lawyer tried to argue the sentence didn’t match the crime, calling it “unjust and unfair”.

“We submit that the 32 years for a single act, albeit with catastrophic consequences, is simply too much,” Button’s lawyer, Paul Rosser KC said in an earlier appeal hearing.

But Supreme Court Justices said the jail term sentence was “not manifestly excessive”, describing the tragedy as “horrendous”.

In his appeal, Button tried to argue that the sentencing judge was wrong when they found he was “knowingly” under the influence of strong painkillers.

Button argued he did not realise he was affected by the opioid because he had taken it for so long and never felt impacted by it.

But it was revealed Button should have known he was under the drug’s effect because he was fired from a previous job for being “addicted”, Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC said.

Button also argued another mistake made in his trial was the bus’s tipping point speed.

Although the error was acknowledged, the appeal court said it didn’t matter.

“We have thus concluded that, to the extent that there was an erroneous factual finding that the highest recorded bus speed was nearly twice the estimated rollover tipping point speed of 31km/h, it was not a material error,” their honours said.

Andrew Scott, 35, his wife Lynan Scott, 33, Nadene McBride, 52, her daughter Kyah McBride, 22, and her partner, Kane Symons, 21, Darcy Bulman, 30, Rebecca Mullen, 26, Zachary Bray, 29, Tori Cowburn, 29, and Angus Craig, 28, were all killed in the crash.

Button will be eligible for parole in 2048.

The beaming bride and groom were pictured cutting their wedding cake just hours before the horror bus crash killed ten of their guests.

Madeleine Edsell and Mitchell Gaffney’s “fairytale” day ended in devastation when the vehicle overturned on Wine Country Drive near the Hunter Expressway off-ramp at Greta.

The couple had got hitched at Wandin Valley Estate in the Hunter Valley, one of Australia‘s major wine regions, before tragedy struck.

Passengers were hauled out of the front windscreen by emergency services as they desperately tried to save those trapped inside.