Bus driver sexually assaulted 16-year-old girl who fell asleep during the last shift home

A bus driver sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl who fell asleep on her last shift home.

Damien Doyle, 48, offered the girl a lift when she found herself stranded with no money at a depot in St Helens, Merseyside, late at night.

He even told the victim that he had a daughter his age and that he would “hate her if she were in that situation.”

But instead, he seized the opportunity by locking her in his car and exploiting her, after commenting, “I bet you get really horny when you’re drunk.”

A trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard that the teenage victim had taken a bus from Queen Square in Liverpool city center to St Helens in September 2022, but fell asleep during the journey.

When she woke up in the depot, she discovered that there were no more services that evening.

Steven Ball, prosecuting, described how the girl had no cash on her and did not want to call her parents to pick her up because she was ‘afraid they would get angry’.

But she saw Doyle outside as he walked back to his car after his shift and approached him.

The defendant then offered her a ride home, telling her that he had a daughter her age and “would hate her if she were in that situation.”

But once inside the car, the armed forces veteran put his hand on hers and said, “Oh my God. You’re freezing. I’ll warm you up.’

Doyle, who had worked as a bus driver for 15 years, then asked her if she had a boyfriend, complimented her and “intertwined hands” with her.

He also told her, “I bet you get really horny when you’re drunk, I could take us to the beach right now.”

The father then locked the doors of his vehicle, placed his hand on the victim’s leg and began caressing her inner thigh while he was still driving after diverting towards Kirkby.

However, the ‘terrified’ teenager told him there had been a “change of plan” and said her friend would pick her up.

Doyle then let her out of the car and hid in a bush before she was captured.

In a statement read to the court on her behalf, the victim said: ‘I felt so vulnerable at that moment with someone I thought I could trust.

‘When he suggested we go to the beach, my heart sank. I started thinking about the stories of terrible things happening to girls, sometimes killing them.

‘The feeling of his hand rubbing the inside of my thigh is a feeling I don’t think I’ll forget. He has no empathy for how I felt that night, no guilt for his actions and no self-awareness for his inappropriate behavior.”

Doyle’s previous convictions include charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 1996 and 2008, but none for sex offences.

Carmel Wilde, mitigating, told the court: ‘He denies the offence. His partner sits at the back of the courtroom and has been present throughout the proceedings. She knows a better side of him and supports him.

‘He hasn’t had any problems for a while. Nothing has happened since 2008. He has previously served in the armed forces with an exemplary service record. He has always been working and works hard.

‘It was an opportunistic foul. It wasn’t something he had gone looking for, looking for young girls. The complainant said very eloquently that she did not want this man to go to prison. She wanted to understand why someone would do this.”

Doyle, of Birchwood Way in Kirkby, Merseyside, was found guilty by a jury of one charge of assault. He was jailed for two years and had to sign the sex offenders register for ten years.

Sentencing, Judge David Swinnerton said: ‘I accept that what happened was not pre-planned, but you did try to take the opportunity. That was predatory in my eyes.

‘There are two reasons why she got into your car. One was because you were a bus driver and she trusted you because you were in public office.

“The other reason was that you told her that you had a daughter her age and that you would hate for your daughter to be in that situation, so you wouldn’t leave her alone. Not surprisingly, she was terrified.”

Doyle’s partner told him to ‘stay strong’ from the public gallery as he was led to the cells.

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