Go backstage with The Music and receive FREE:

  • Exclusive members-only editorial, charts
  • Our subscriber-only newsletter
  • Members only competitions to win tickets, experiences and more
  • Access to our street press archives
  • First access to our exclusive limited edition vinyl variants

Thank you for being a part of our community! Enter your email address as verification and you'll be taken backstage right away.

Please ensure that you provide a valid email address.

Baroness Bus Driver To Face Criminal Charges

The man behind the wheel of the metal band’s coach faces a number of charges.

More Baroness Baroness Profile

The driver of the bus carrying US metal band Baronness when they crashed after a show in the British city of Bristol will now face a number of criminal charges, as a result of the incident.

Norman Markus, a 39-year-old German national, was driving the coach through Monkton Combe when the bus failed to stop at a junction and plummeted 30 feet down an embankment in August last year.

According to the BBC, Markus will be facing charges that include dangerous driving, using a vehicle with defective brakes and breaching a 7.5 tonne weight limit.

As well as this, he will be accused of insufficient daily and weekly rest periods, using a vehicle in a condition likely to cause danger of injury and not having the correct licence entitlement to drive the coach involved in the crash.

He will face court in Bath on Friday 5 April.

All four members of the band as well as their crew were sent to hospital after the crash as nine people were injured, two of them seriously.

A couple of months following the crash, the band assured their fans that they remained more devoted to their craft than ever before after facing their mortality.

Join 'Backstage Pass', our FREE members program for music fans