A tourist who was travelling on a bus which fell 30 feet down an embankment at a beauty spot has lost a test case against a coach company.

Allen Woodhouse was one of many passengers who sued Lochs and Glens (Transport Ltd) after a March 2015 accident on the Rest and Be Thankful road.

His lawyers launched a legal action against the firm, which is based in Gartochan, Dunbartonshire, because he claimed it was liable for the accident through the actions of its employee, the driver.

Five people were seriously hurt and dozens more wounded after the bus veered off the road on the road, near Arrochar, Dunbartonshire.

One passenger described how it felt like being in a “washing machine”.  The coach flipped upside down before turning back onto its side and stopping just six feet from Loch Restil.

A total of 51 visitors were onboard - most were pensioners from Kent - when the coach crashed on its way to Inveraray.

Police didn’t charge driver Elizabeth Gallon because officers concluded that the accident was caused by freak gusts of wind.

Lawyers acting for Mr Woodhouse sought £15,000 compensation. They claimed that Ms Gallon was driving too quickly for the prevailing weather conditions.

However, in a written judgement issued at the Court of Session on Wednesday, judge Lord Glennie ruled in favour of the coach company. He concluded that Mr Woodhouse’s legal team had failed to prove their case.

He wrote: “Absent any proved connection between the coach’s speed and its vulnerability to being blown off course, absent any evidence that the particular speed of the coach made an accident of this sort any reasonably foreseeable or in some way more likely, then the question of how to react in such circumstances and whether the speed of the cash allows sufficient time to react does not arise.

“Negligence depends on 'reasonable foreseeability' - it does not require steps to be taken in advance to meet a situation the occurrence of which is not reasonably foreseeable.”