Former bus driver John Alfaro, 53, leaves court after pleading guilty on Thursday. Photo: Albert McKnight.
The actions of the bus driver who crashed into a young woman in northern Canberra, resulting in her death, caused suffering to countless people mourning her loss.
John Alfaro was driving a public transport bus on 11 March 2025 when he crashed into 22-year-old Uqasha Imran as she was riding her motorbike on the Barton Highway in Nicholls.
He had driven through an intersection without stopping the bus at a stop sign. Ms Imran was taken to hospital and died from her injuries several days later.
She was a talented taekwondo athlete, a mentor to her siblings and excelled in her studies before joining her father’s office to begin a career in financial services.
“There is not a single day that goes by when I don’t feel my heart has been squished and my life has been sucked out of me,” her father, Imran Amjad, told the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday (14 August).
He described his daughter as “a better reflection of myself”.
“I look at my kids and their laughter isn’t the same. They have progressed in their lives, but their joy isn’t the same,” Mr Amjad said.
“I look at my wife and see a picture of sorrow.
“The word ‘happiness’ has been sucked out of our lives.”
He told Alfaro, “You are the killer of this happiness”.
Ms Imran’s mother said the happiest moment of her life was when her daughter arrived in her arms.
“Now I have an ache that is beyond anyone’s comprehension and is staying with me forever,” she said.
“Everyone is telling me that I am brave and strong – no, I’m not. I’m only doing what Uqasha would have wanted me to do in these circumstances; she would not want me to crumble in tremendous sorrow.
“She was my friend, my companion, my daughter, my soul.”
Her mother told Alfaro that for the rest of his life he would be known as “a life snatcher”.
Mr Amjad also read out a statement as if his daughter wrote it.
“You took criminally reckless actions and took my life away,” the statement said to Alfaro.
Alfaro pleaded guilty to a charge of negligent driving occasioning death on Thursday afternoon in front of many members of his victim’s family.
“Ultimately, he didn’t see the young lady … and he accepted he ought to have seen the young lady,” the 53-year-old’s lawyer, Tim Sharman, said.
His client also should have stopped at the stop sign before crossing the highway, he said.
Prosecutor Morgan Howe said in addition to not seeing Ms Imran, Alfaro hadn’t complied with the road rules. If he had stopped at the intersection, it was much more likely he would have seen her and stopped in time before crossing the highway.
Mr Howe noted the bus driver had been employed in a position that required him to ensure the safety of his passengers and other road users.
Mr Sharman read out a letter by his client’s wife, in which she said her family was devastated by what happened and her partner was deeply broken.
He said Alfaro had no prior criminal history, was born in the Philippines, became an Australian citizen in 2012 and began working as a bus driver in 2020. He was still employed, but was now in another role.
Magistrate Ian Temby will sentence Alfaro, who remains in the community, on 16 September.
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