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The bus driver in the infamous ‘Putney Pusher’ case has his own intriguing theory about the unsolved case, the Daily Mail has learned.
Last week we re-examined the shocking unsolved assault in which a jogger deliberately pushed a woman into the path of a double-decker bus on Putney Bridge in 2017 – all captured in a horrific video from the rear camera of another bus.
Only the lightning-fast reactions of the driver, French-born Oliver Salbris, prevented the woman’s head from being crushed beneath the wheel of the 12-tonne bus.
Nine years on, and the police investigation into the case is long closed, and no suspect has ever been charged.
We tracked down Mr Salbris, 54, who is still a bus driver, to discover his own thoughts about the mysterious case which has stayed with him ever since.
He believes that the ‘pusher’ and his victim must have come to ‘some kind of arrangement’ in the aftermath of the incident, persuading her to let the case drop.
‘I always think about the case and I still drive over Putney Bridge several times a day,’ said Mr Salbris, who now lives in Windsor, Berks.
‘Whenever I’m on the bridge, I look very carefully at the pedestrians on the pavement, I just cannot help it. I wouldn’t say it haunts me, but it’s not something I can easily forget.
‘I’m glad my reactions were quick on that day, or it would have ended very differently, both for me and the woman who was pushed.
‘Her head was only a few centimetres from the bus and the wheel, even after I swerved to avoid her.’
But despite all the media coverage since the incident – and even a stage play based around it two years ago – there’s one person Oliver has never heard from – the 33-year-old woman whose life he undoubtedly saved that day beneath the 430 bus to Putney.
‘I am not fishing for thanks, I just think it’s odd in those circumstances that she has never reached out, even anonymously to say thank you,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘That is one of the reasons that I think maybe the guy who did it found a way to contact her and drop the case. I don’t know for sure, but something about the whole case has never added up for me.
‘There was never any doubt in my mind that the guy did it deliberately – the pavement was almost empty and he had to take a step to the side to reach the lady and pushed her with both hands. There’s no way that could have been an accident.
‘I’ve always wondered what was going through his head. Maybe he had just had a row with someone – or was in the middle of a row on earphones while running – and decided to take it out on the first woman he came across?’
Oliver immediately brought the bus to a halt, blocking the bus lane on the busy commuter route for six or seven minutes following the incident, he recalled.
‘After the bus stopped, I got out and spoke to her and gave her all my details in case she needed me as a witness with the police. A female passenger also got off and helped her, then I believe walked with her to contact the police.
‘I remember the victim asking me, “What happened?” and “Why? Why? Why?” She asked me “Why me?”‘
He told the Daily Mail he hadn’t realised quite how close she came to falling under his bus until he saw the shocking video and didn’t believe his victim knew either.
‘It was only when I saw the video in August that it hit me. Luckily she is OK, but if she had died it would have destroyed my life as well. It was terrible.’
Bizarrely, 15 minutes after the initial incident, the jogger returned across the bridge in the other direction and despite his victim calling to him, he ran past without responding. By that time, the bus had continued on its journey and Oliver never saw the man again.
‘I don’t believe I would recognise him again even if I saw him,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘I mostly saw him from the side and behind, and the images were not that clear, so I think it would be impossible.’
Three separate suspects were arrested for the offence, but none was charged. For unexplained reasons the police waited three months after the incident in May 2017 before releasing the shocking footage, and it quickly went viral.
But despite the large number of surveillance cameras in London, no other images of the jogger from static cameras were ever released, suggesting that he either somehow evaded CCTV coverages – or more likely the footage was not retrieved before being wiped.
Oliver, originally from Strasbourg, France, is married with two young daughters and has been driving a London bus – not always the 430 route – for Go-Ahead London, the largest TfL contractor, since 2007.
He modestly shrugs off any suggestion that he’s a hero, though many have praised his reactions and skill at avoiding not only the pusher’s victim, but also other vehicles when he swerved that day.
‘Driving a bus is a job with responsibility and I do take that seriously,’ he said. ‘As a professional driver – in fact as any driver – you have to be constantly alert to other motorists and pedestrians.’
In 2018, a year after the incident, the Met announced that their inquiry was closed as all leads had been investigated.
Nevertheless, the public fascination endured, and was briefly heightened with the announcement in 2024 of the launch of a play inspired by the real-life drama.
The work, titled Once Upon a Bridge, was written by Irish playwright Sonya Kelly and staged at the OSO Arts Centre in Barnes, London, close to the site of the incident itself.
The drama was not a straightforward retelling. Instead, it reimagined the incident from the perspectives of the three central figures, the jogger, the victim and the bus driver.
Oliver recalled the publicity for the play, but never went to see it.
‘I was hoping they might send me an invitation!’ he joked, ‘I’d have liked to see who played me.’
The Met told the Daily Mail: ‘All lines of enquiry have been exhausted and the investigation has been closed. As with all investigations, any new information or evidence that comes to light will be assessed and acted on accordingly.
‘If anyone wishes to contact police please call 101 referencing this case and South West CID.’
