Hunter Valley wedding bus crash: Heartbreaking blow for families whose loved ones were killed

Families of 10 wedding guests killed in a bus crash say they feel “betrayed” after learning manslaughter charges against him will be dropped as part of a settlement.

Brett Button, 59, is expected to plead guilty to multiple lesser charges of dangerous driving causing death following the crash which saw his coach roll into a roundabout at a wedding near Greta in the NSW Hunter Valley on June 11 last year.

The deal, which reportedly came after weeks of negotiations between Button’s lawyers and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), will see 10 manslaughter charges dropped when he appears in Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday appears.

The DPP remained tight-lipped about the news on Tuesday, saying the matter was still before the courts.

Matt Mullen, the father of Rebecca Mullen who died in the crash, made a plea to the Director of Public Prosecutions to proceed with the original manslaughter counts, which were included in the 89 charges Button faced.

“I have begged them, we are still waiting in the process now hoping they will reconsider,” Mr Mullen said. Seven news.

“It’s a tattoo on our heart that we will have to wear forever for the rest of our lives.”

His wife Leanne said news of the reduced charges, which the families were informed of just 36 hours before Button’s hearing, had been devastating.

“As a mother, I could hold her while she was still warm, hold her hand, kiss her on the forehead and tell her the things I needed to say, but I was denied because it was a crime scene,” she said.

“But now it seems to me that those sacrifices of mine as a mother have not been respected.”

Montana Bray, whose 30-year-old brother Zach Bray died in the crash, said the news hit her hard.

“I feel disrespected and I feel like they are trying to settle things quickly and quietly,” she said.

“The ten people who died on that bus deserve more than this.”

Leanne and Matt Mullen, parents of bus crash victim Rebecca Mullen, say charge reduction is a ‘betrayal’

Ten wedding guests were killed in the crash. They included Rebecca Mullen, Zach Bray Angus Craig, Tori Cowburn, Nadene and Kyah McBride, Kane Symons, Andrew and Lynan Scott, and Darcy Bulman.

Victim support campaigner Howard Brown branded the decision as ‘cowardly’.

He said this was the “easy way out to negotiate a lower compensation that does not reflect the seriousness of the case.”

In a statement read outside court by his lawyer Chris O’Brien in March, Button said “not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened that night.”

“Not an hour goes by that I don’t think about the families affected by the crash,” he said at the time.

‘I really sympathize with everyone involved, including the emergency services.

‘I’m devastated by what happened and I’m really, really sorry.’

The other bus crash victims were Angus Craig, Tori Cowburn, Nadene and Kyah McBride, Kane Symons, Andrew and Lynan Scott and Darcy Bulman.

Next month will mark one year since the tragedy occurred.

A bus full of wedding guests was on its way back to Singleton on June 11 last year when it crashed