A bus driver who posted online videos of a young woman verbally abusing him said yesterday he did it to show the public what he and his colleagues regularly face.

Father-of-two and grandfather Fabian Harris, 51, filmed the woman when she stepped onto his bus at Hamilton Bus Station and began a foul-mouthed tirade.

The YouTube videos have resurfaced this week in the wake of several reported physical attacks on bus drivers; one of the films had attracted almost 4,000 views by late yesterday afternoon.

Mr Harris, who is now a supervisor at the Department of Public Transportation, told The Royal Gazette he wouldn’t have posted the footage in his current position but felt at the time that people needed to see what was happening.

“This is what we have to deal with,” he said. “My position has changed on the job so it wasn’t a good thing to do [but] I don’t regret doing it.

“I was just trying to get out there to the public that this is what we have to deal with. I did it just to have some evidence of what was going on.”

Mr Harris claimed he’d had previous “run-ins” with the woman and finally decided to film her aggressive behaviour.

“She had an incident where her boyfriend had a big fish, a big open fish, and I told her he couldn’t bring it on.

“He stepped off nicely but she started cursing me really bad. From then on, she came on [the bus] and insisted on staying on.”

He alleged that the videos showed the third or fourth time the woman, believed to be aged 22, verbally abused him.

“I started driving around with my iPod in my top pocket,” he said, adding that on the day in question the woman began shouting at him in the bus terminal.

He began filming her before she got on the bus and carried on once he got in the driver’s seat.

The footage appears in two separate videos on YouTube video, both titled ‘Stupid Girl’.

The woman can he heard yelling “I have the right to be on this bus” before telling another PTB worker, who arrives to ask Mr Harris why the bus hasn’t pulled out: “Don’t touch me. Call the police. That’s all you f****** do.”

She tells Mr Harris: “I want you to stop telling me I’m a f****** fool.”

The female goes on to insult both men, using foul language and racial slurs.

Mr Harris said he had never called the woman a fool or done anything other than ask her to leave his bus.

“It’s basically better to ask her to get off my bus,” he said. “I never talked to her in any way, other than ‘you can’t get on the bus’.”

He alleged that the woman had verbally abused other bus drivers in a similar way.

“It’s many operators she’s had run-ins with. I was the first to actually record it.”

Mr Harris said it was standard practice to call for police assistance when a passenger became abusive but on the day he filmed the woman, she walked away before police arrived.

“What happened was I had taken that video to the police station to make a report,” he said. “The police never called me.

“I gave a statement to police [but] they never called me so I don’t know what happened.”

The videos got little attention when they were posted last year, as they could only be found by searching for the title.

But they are now getting thousands of views after an assault on veteran driver Juliet Pearman-Tucker on Monday, which is still being investigated by police, and the conviction on Tuesday of Kenneth Leverock for attacking driver Edwin Phillips last month.

“It piqued some people’s interest,” said Mr Harris. “Because of what happened it brought it back to the surface and made it really popular.

“Most of the bus operators didn’t know it was there. Now, after [Monday’s] incident happened, they do.”

The supervisor, who has experienced verbal assaults from other passengers though never a physical attack, said he welcomed Government plans to get tough on violent criminals who target public transport staff.

And he said members of the public who criticise drivers should watch the video. “Now it’s time for you to see what we physically go through.”

A police spokesman said yesterday: “The video appears to relate to a November 2012 incident which was reported to police. A female suspect was arrested in connection with the matter and bailed to appear before the court, but she did not attend.

As a result a warrant has been issued for her arrest which is still active.”

Regarding the assault of Ms Pearman-Tucker, the spokesman said no arrests have been made.

See an edited versions of one of the videos, with bad language removed, at www.royalgazette.com.