Woman sent to jail for vile bus assault

44-YEAR-OLD SPAT IN CONDUCTOR’S FACE WHEN HE ASKED HER TO GET OFF VEHICLE

A WOMAN has been jailed after she launched an attack on a bus conductor who asked her to get off.

Sarah Eckford, 44, kicked the ticket inspector and spat in his face as he tried to restrain her at Owens Park bus stop on Wilmslow Road in Fallowfield.

Eckford had already been charged and bailed for a public order offence in which she flashed a group of teenagers, when she committed the assault.

Prosecutor Gareth Hughes told the court that on the afternoon of September 9, three 13-year-old boys had been in Kansas Chicken in Chorlton.

Eckford came up to the shop window and lifted her top to reveal her breast area, the court heard.

“She then came into the shop and took some of their food,” Mr Hughes said.

“They phoned the police and when they arrived they could tell the defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

A week later, on September 15, Eckford had been travelling on a bus on Wilmslow Road when she was asked to get off as she didn’t have a valid ticket.

“She became abusive and called the ticket inspector racist,” Mr Hughes told Manchester Magistrates Court.

“The defendant was sniffing gas and got off the bus voluntarily but carried on being abusive. She kicked the inspector and tried to head-butt him and then spat at him towards his head.

“He detained her and she spat on her own hand and wiped it on his arm.”

The court heard that Eckford has a long history of previous convictions.

Her defence solicitor, Lindsey Brown, said her client had been a social worker, before becoming a domestic violence victim and developing a drug addiction.

“She accepts under the current climate and under any climate it is unacceptable to spit at someone.”

Eckford, of Orkney Close, Manchester, was jailed for 16 weeks after admitting a public order offence and common assault.

She will serve half her sentence before release and was ordered to pay the ticket inspector £50 compensation.