Advertisement

Bus driver’s attacker sentenced

An American man who attacked a Sydney bus driver has been sentenced to nine months jail.

The driver suffered severe injuries in the brutal assault caught on security cameras.

It was a brutal attack, on a defenceless bus driver.

Twenty-five-year-old Samuel Alan Smith told Waverley Court he was tired after a 14-hour shift as a restaurant sommelier, and said he was disoriented after falling asleep on the bus home.

At the end of the line, in North Bondi, the driver asks him to leave and he did, he got back on and challenged the driver.

That's when things got ugly. The driver thinking he was going to be attacked grabbed Smith by the throat, and droves him backwards into a fence.

Smith then unleashed his anger on the driver, kicking him, punching him, and kneeing him in the head.

The attack left 57-year-old John Olsen with a broken nose, black eyes and cuts to his face.

Magistrate Jacquline Milledge told Smith she has no doubt he is of good character.

“But the message has to get out there so other people don't have a brain snap and engage in this type of behaviour,” Milledge said.

Smith will spend at least six months behind bars, and he will be appealing the sentence.