THE driver of a coach which plunged down a ravine in South Africa killing 27 British tourists, including a North-East woman, has succeeded in overturning a six-year jail sentence.

And 47-year-old Titus Dube has also been given his licence back.

Lawyers for Dube - who has been on bail pending his appeal - were last night still trying to track him down to tell him the " good news".

Twenty-six elderly Brit-ons and a South African tour guide died instantly in the crash. Another Briton died in hospital a month later.

Sentencing Dube in April last year, magistrate Dries Lamprecht told him he had acted with "gross negligence" when he pressed the accelerator instead of the brake pedal.

The four-year-old coach hit a bank at the bottom of the steep Long Tom pass, three miles from Lydenburg, in Eastern Mpum-alanga, in September 1999.

The father-of-five from Johannesburg was jailed for six years and banned from driving for six years after pleading guilty to culpable homicide.

Mr Lamprecht said that the jail sentence was necessary to help in the "healing process" for the victims' families, who he added, would expect him to be punished. However, Dube, who was injured in the crash, immediately appealed against the sentence and has been free ever since.

The Pretoria High Court has now set aside the sentence and replaced it with a prison term of two years, suspended for five years, on condition that Dube was not found guilty of negligent driving again. His driving licence has also been restored.

Among the crash victims were scientist John Dartnell and his wife Margaret, aged 70, of Marton, Middlesbrough. Mrs Dartnell was killed and her husband suffered multiple injuries.

Dr Dartnell, a retired British Steel research scientist, received serious head injuries and was unable to remember anything about the accident.

He was in a critical condition for some time but, because of the memory loss, was unaware that his wife had been killed until six weeks after the accident.

The 70-year-old, who suffered a stroke only two weeks after he remarried, was too ill to comment last night.

However, his new wife Kathy, who was a friend of Margaret Dartnell, said: "I know at the time he felt there was a need for justice. I am not sure how my husband will feel when he hears this verdict."

Dube's lawyer, Arno Botha, said: "The court found that this man was not a criminal.

"He has an excellent record. He just panicked and pressed the accelerator instead of the brakes."

He added that Dube was no longer working as a bus driver as he became "quite sick" after the accident.

During the case against Dube in April 2001, the court heard that terrified passengers had begged him to slow down as the coach reached speeds of up to 73mph as it hurtled down the treacherous pass through the Drakensberg mountains.

He told them that the brakes had failed, but detectives ruled out mechanical problems.

The magistrate, who took into account Dube's 20-year "exemplary" driving record, concluded that the driver failed to familiarise himself with the controls and should not have relied on the brakes alone to slow down the out-of-control coach.

Insurance claims have been been paid out to victims and their families.