Abu Dhabi: The hearing in the case of the death of four-year-old school girl of the Al Worood Academy Private School in a school bus has been postponed until December 16, the Court of Misdemeanour heard on Sunday.

This is the third postponement in the case because a new judge will preside at the hearing and needs time to review the relevant documents.

Four-year-old Nizaha Ala’a died in October after being left unattended in a locked school bus.

The bus driver and attendant in addition to a school employee are all currently in jail and face charges of negligence and failure to perform their duties. The bus company owner and the school’s principal are also on trial.

Earlier, the Court of Misdemeanour heard the bus driver claim that he had no role in checking for students inside the bus and was dismissed after the attendant told him that she had completed her check. However, attendant confessed at the Public Prosecutor’s office that she had walked half-way through the bus without completing a thorough inspection to see whether any students had been left behind.

“My job is to take the students between their homes and the school. I am not allowed to speak to them or communicate with them in any way,” the Pakistani school bus driver said during the first session in the case.

Nizaha died of suffocation and heat stroke only hours after she left her Khalidiya home where she resides with her parents and older sibling.

The third defendant, a Lebanese employee working at the school claimed that her job was to receive and resolve student and parents’ complaints.

The school had also reportedly failed to inform the parents that their daughter was absent from her classes that day.

Police documents also reveal that the bus was not authorised to be used as school transportation. The school’s principal and the owner of the transport company that lent its vehicles to the school are both therefore charged with endangering the lives of the students using their buses.

The Department of Transport (DoT) had issued a set of regulations to revamp their buses and make them safe and suitable for school transportation. These rules include allowing windows to open up to seven centimetres. Nizaha was found sprawled near the bus exit with her lunch eaten.

The next hearing will allow defence and prosecution to present their case.