Durban - A man believed to be an enraged motorist climbed aboard a bus full of schoolchildren and violently beat a 9-year-old boy all over his body with a belt.
Now the Richards Bay child’s family has gone public with harrowing video footage of the incident - captured by an onboard CCTV camera - in an attempt to find the man.
The footage was posted social media and has since gone viral. (IOL has decided not to show the video because of the minors involved.)
The incident took place just after 2.30pm on August 10. The bus was travelling on the John Ross Highway, from Empangeni - where the boy goes to school - to Richards Bay.
The boy’s mother, whose identity has been withheld to protect her child, said that one of the children on the bus threw something out of a window that cracked the windscreen of a car. The motorist cut off the bus and climbed aboard.
The footage shows the man march down the aisle, while the children appear to point him in the direction of the “culprit”.
They gather around and he engages with them for a few moments before he makes his way back up the aisle.
It looks as though he speaks briefly to the bus driver before turning his attention back to the boy. He produces a belt and appears to thrash the boy about 14 times with it, before disembarking from the bus.
“It wasn’t even my son who threw the stone,” the boy’s mother said on Thursday.
She had been waiting for her child at the bus stop.
“When the bus came, all the other kids jumped out and came running to me to tell me what had happened,” she said. Her son was severely traumatised; he had belt marks on his back and ear and his face was red.
“It also looked like someone grabbed him by his arm,” she said.
She opened a case of assault, but the man has not been found. As a last resort she and her husband have turned to social media in the hope that someone will recognise him and come forward.
“As a mother, I am shocked and disgusted,” she said.
Her son was still taking the bus to and from school but was afraid and felt victimised.
The manager of the bus service said it offered a dedicated shuttle service to pupils travelling between Richards Bay and Empangeni every day.
He said the bus driver had not known what the man wanted.
“He (the bus driver) thought there was an emergency or that he wanted to collect a child,” he said, “It’s very difficult to blame him.”
He also said the driver could not immediately assist the child as he had to get out on the driver’s side and run around the bus to the passengers’ side to get to him.
“And it all happened so fast.”
He expressed his sympathy for the child and his parents. “But police must investigate,” he said.
He was convinced that they could identify the car’s registration if footage from another camera at the front of the bus was analysed.
“Our drivers have now been instructed not to stop for anyone and that if someone tries to flag them down, to drive to a safe place or a police station,” he said.
Police spokeswoman Nqobile Gwala confirmed that a case of assault had been opened at the Richards Bay police station.
No arrests had been made, Gwala said
bernadette. [email protected]
The Mercury