A TRAFFIC commissioner yesterday told a rogue bus operator who repeatedly flouted regulations he should consider becoming a double glazing salesman.

Tom Macartney said Lesley Frazer was a danger to the public who should be taken off the road and not be allowed within a "barge pole's length of a bus again".

He dismissed Mr Frazer's application for a new passenger carrying vehicle (PCV) licence and barred him indefinitely from holding one, after hearing of a catalogue of "despicable" offences.

The traffic commissioners' hearing in Consett, County Durham, was told how six Cornish schoolchildren had suffered slight injuries when a 74-seat double-decker bus driven by Mr Frazer collided with a low bridge in Spain in June this year.

At the time of the accident, Mr Frazer of Coniston Crescent, Winlaton, Tyneside, had no PCV licence, while the bus had had no tax, no insurance, no MoT, and carried no valid operator's licence.

Traffic examiner Anusia Bainbridge also detailed a chartered coach trip in the same bus by Mr Frazer to Wembley in May 1999 for the Newcastle United Cup Final clash with Manchester United.

He had no tax, no MoT, no insurance and was using someone else's operator's licence.

Similar offences were committed when he made another trip to Spain and took a group of schoolchildren from St Thomas Moor School, Blaydon, to Flamingo Land.

The hearing was told the company Mr Frazer was involved in had lost its operators licence in 1998, but he had continued to operate without one since then.

Neil Connell, representing Mr Frazer, said his client had committed the offences through "absolute desperation" under financial pressure.

Mr Frazer, who had been a bus operator for 20 years, said that he had no other way of earning a living. And put the expiry of his PCV licence down to an administrative error.

But Mr Macartney said: "I have grave concerns about the way you have been behaved. The way you have driven your bus has been despicable."

He added: "You are unfit to be on the road. My advice to you it to take up something different, like selling double glazing."

Mr Macartney recommended a minimum of ten years before Mr Frazer could reapply for a PCV.