“I want the truth to be told,” a young woman told Omroep Brabant on Thursday evening. She was on the bus in Roosendaal where a discussion between the driver, a passenger and her brothers got completely out of hand. “I understand that those men smashed the windows.”
“I was on the bus with my mother when that girl got on. She had a cup in her hand and the driver told her to throw it away. She put it in her bag and then got in. The driver then looked back and said that he has often seen people start drinking anyway. He said ‘throw it away or you’re out’. We and another woman looked at us strangely. We didn’t understand what she had done wrong.”
At that point, the woman with the drink asked if she could get off the bus. She didn’t feel safe. “That driver then started smiling very strangely and locked the doors. She asked again and began to shake. She pressed the stop button in a panic, but the doors wouldn’t open. Meanwhile, the driver just kept laughing. We were also looking, what do you want.”
“They knocked on the door and politely asked if it could be opened.”
The woman decided to call her brothers. And the driver then called the police. A few minutes later, two men approached the bus. “They knocked on the door and politely asked if it could be opened. The bus driver looked at them, smiled again, but didn’t open the doors. He said the police were coming.”
One of the men explained that his sister was probably having a panic attack and asked that the doors be opened again. The driver then rolled down his window. Moments later, the man slammed his fist through it.
The young woman who watched the discussion did not know what she was experiencing. She is still quite shocked and therefore only wants to tell her story anonymously. “But I do understand the man who smashed the window. I think he was afraid something would happen to her. They remained very tidy, but the bus driver acted very strange.”
“It’s one word against another.”
One of the men was injured and taken to hospital. None of them have been arrested. “If we really suspect them of a criminal offense, we arrest people,” explains a spokesperson. “It is destruction. But the family would also have called several times to open the door. They can also report deprivation of liberty. So it’s one word against the other.”
Police are continuing to investigate, including reviewing CCTV footage. Then it is assessed whether people are being prosecuted. Arriva does not want to comment for the time being. “We as a company are also investigating the incident. We will not make any further statements during the investigation.”
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