Two young women caught racially abusing elderly man on bus, get arrested for it

This happened in Australia and it's very disgusting. He's an elderly blind man who was sitting on the bus and attacked because two drunk women (21 and 17) thought they could get away with it.



Luckily another girl, only 13, caught them on tape and they were quickly identified.



Naturally the father of one of them is trying to defend her actions, as if somehow not knowing "the whole story" makes it okay to attack an old blind man. :whatever:



The bus driver didn't stop it and the company did not report the incident to the police either, further making this an insult to the victim.



I've clipped out quite a bit from the original report. It's been updated several times and I excised some of the details seeing as this is already long enough.



Courier Mail

Quote:

TWO young women accused of a racist attack on an elderly blind man on a Gold Coast bus have received death threats, their lawyer says. One has been freed on bail but her co-accused will remain behind bars and was led back to the cells sobbing. Larna Watmough, 21, and Layni Cameron, 17, faced Southport Magistrates Court this morning charged with serious assault and public nuisance. They are accused of assaulting 77-year-old man Paul Buttigieg on a Surfside bus on Tuesday. The attack was filmed by a 13-year-old passenger on a smartphone and whipped up a social media storm. A man believed to be Watmough's father expressed anger that she was in handcuffs when she appeared in the dock. "Stay strong," he urged her. [...] Earlier it was reported that the father of a 21-year-old woman accused of attacking an elderly man on a Gold Coast bus claims his daughter is being vilified by people who "don't know the story at all". Video of the attack has gone viral and the pair have been condemned on social media. Larna Watmough, 21, and 17-year-old Layni Cameron have both been charged with serious assault and public nuisance and will appear in Southport Magistrates Court this morning. [...] Mr Watmough claimed 77-year-old Paul Buttigieg was "rude" and the backlash his daughter endured on social media was unjustified. [...] The pair is accused of punching, kicking and spitting on 77-year-old Paul Buttigieg in an attack that has outraged the nation. Both girls have been charged with serious assault and public nuisance. Layni, 17, screamed “I don’t want to go” as she was led to a police wagon in handcuffs yesterday. Mr Buttigieg yesterday wept as he recounted his bus ride, describing how he couldn’t tell how many people were allegedly hitting him because he is vision-impaired. The Tweed Heads West man is blind in his right eye and can barely see from his left. He wears a jacket at all times to alert people, but the New South Wales girls who attacked him allegedly came from behind. “I didn’t know if there was one or two of them hitting me,” Mr Buttigieg said. The girls, who had earlier been at the Murwillumbah races, reportedly abused several passengers before turning on Mr Buttigieg after he told them to go home. Both will face Southport Magistrates Court this morning after an extraordinary level of condemnation of the incident on social media. Posts on The Courier-Mail's Facebook page reached a record three million users. The duo were identified by scores of people on Facebook and Twitter and by yesterday morning police knew exactly who they were. Police made contact with Mr Buttigieg early yesterday and he visited Coolangatta police station, wearing an “I have low vision” badge, to make a formal statement. When Layni arrived hours later she was arrested and charged with serious assault. As she was being transferred to the Southport watchhouse in the back of a police wagon, Watmough handed herself in to Southport police station, flanked by defence lawyer Jodi Allen. [...] Footage from Channel 9 shows one of the girls saying "we’re in abo land now" before they punch and kick the elderly man. The man tried to fight back until a passenger came forward to kick the girls off the bus. After the incident the elderly victim had to be helped to his seat, crying ‘I’m blind, I can’t see.” The incident was recorded on a camera phone by schoolgirl Rebecca Ribbons at the back of the bus. The 13-year-old said she was shocked that no one on the bus did anything to help the man. “I yelled ‘somebody stop it’ and a man from behind me stood up, picked up their hats and pushed them off the bus. He was the only one who did anything.” Rebecca said the bus driver didn’t move or say anything during the entire incident. “He didn’t even look back. Even when the man was getting off the bus I didn’t hear him say ‘are you alright?’.” [...] Rebecca’s mother Sharon Kendell said they took the footage of the incident to show to police. “You never expect two young girls to beat up an old man on a bus in the middle of the day, it’s unheard of.” “Shame on the girls, shame on the men on the bus and shame on the bus driver for not doing anything.” But Surfside Buslines Head of Operations Les Manson commended the driver for his actions that ‘helped ensure safety of those on board’. “All Surfside drivers are trained in de-escalation techniques and the quick actions from this driver has mitigated an incident quickly and successfully.” Mr Manson said Surfside took all incidents of abuse seriously. It’s understood Surfside did not report the incident to police. Acting chief superintendent Des Lacy said the incident was ‘abhorrent’. [...]