Bus driver bites passenger in row over ticket price

A passenger was bitten on the chest by a bus driver in a row over the price of a ticket.

Martin Pickering, 38, was returning from a day out in Derby with his two daughters when he got involved in the row over how much he was being charged.

He said the driver charged him around £1.50 more for the outbound journey than he paid for the tickets on the way into the city.

Martin asked for an explanation of why he was charged a different price from the way into town and was not given a reasonable response.

The argument escalated when the Arriva driver refused to hand over his name, so Martin decided to take a photo of him as evidence on his phone - and the dro lunged at him, biting his chest.

According to the Daily Mail, Martin said: "He put the engine off, and it turned the lights off on the bus, and he started to get his paperwork together and he put his hand up and he knocked it (the mobile phone) out of my hand.

"It went to the floor. Then he bit me. He bit me on the boob.

"He was only 5ft 10 and I'm 6ft 10. I assume if we were the same height he would have bitten higher."

He added: "When you get on a bus you don't expect you to end up being someone's lunch.

"I mean, who bites people? I was so taken aback. I couldn't believe it had happened."

The driver was arrested after the incident in December 2013 and was cautioned.

Mr Pickering has now been awarded £1,500 in an out-of-court settlement.

A spokesman for Arriva told the Mirror: "Arriva Midlands carried out a full and thorough investigation into this serious matter at the time and took appropriate action as per its policies and procedures."