The London Evening Standard reports that a 27-year-old woman had seen the bus allegedly running a red light and filmed it doing so, intending to report the incident. Instead, the female driver, said to be in her 30s, stopped the double-decker vehicle in the middle of London’s Stamford Street and started what has been described as an “ugly assault,” leaving the bus doors open and engine on in the middle of the road.
A video on the Guardian’s website shows how other drivers were forced to swerve around the pair as they grappled in the middle of the street, the driver holding the victim around the neck as she screams “Let go of me, you have to let go of me.” The bus driver responds by shouting “You took my picture! Delete my picture!” as she tries to get the woman’s phone from her bag.
A passer-by steps in, clearly in shock at what is happening on the pavement. As the victim slumps to the ground and appears to briefly lose consciousness, the witness asks the driver: “What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be driving that bus… and you’ve done this?”
The driver angrily confronts the gathering crowd before finally boarding her bus again — still parked in the middle of the road — and pulling away in the direction of the British Film Institute. The victim was left lying on the ground while other pedestrians fetched help.
The incident on June 16 has been reported to the police as an assault. A spokesman told the London Evening Standard: “A 27-year-old female alleges she was assaulted by the driver of a tour bus. Enquiries continue and there have been no arrests.”
A witness said: “The bus driver had apparently run a red light and the pedestrian filmed it on her phone. The next moment the bus driver pulled up and left the bus in the middle of the road and stopped the traffic. She assaulted the pedestrian, grabbed her and dragged her onto the pavement.”
The bus was operated by Golden Tours, which runs a fleet of open-top double-decker vehicles on sight-seeing tours of London. It said that the driver was a contract worker supplied by an agency and that her contract was terminated after the incident, as it was also filmed by CCTV cameras fitted to the bus.
