Wednesday 31 August 2011

Disabled Mum Battered To Floor In 'Bus Baby Buggy Rage' Attack


A disabled bus passenger was battered unconscious to the floor in a sickening 'baby buggy rage' attack because she wouldn't move her three year-old daughter's pushchair, a court heard today.


Nova Whiting-Willet, 36, was travelling on a packed number 85 double-decker with husband Anders, 32, and was in the crowded buggy area, where passengers had also left suitcases.


Wayne McCatty, 34,(pic.bottom) of Stroud Crescent, Putney tried to force a buggy carrying a small child into the tiny space and admits punching the couple as the row escalated.


"I told him I could not move either way," Mrs Whiting-Willet - who has auto-immune disease lupus - told Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court. "He said aggressively: 'You are going to have to fucking move'.


"He said: 'If you weren't so fucking fat you'd be able to move you fat ugly bitch.'


"I pleaded with him to stop because my daughter was crying and he said: 'What are you going to do? Eat me or something?'


"He was trying to ram his buggy into a place where there was not any room with the suitcases there," she told the jury.


"He kept making threats that he would have his boys waiting for us when we got off the bus.


"He grabbed my right arm very, very tightly. I couldn't get him off me and I remember being punched on the side of the head and being on the floor very quickly.


"He had hold of my head and was banging it against the floor and I felt him stamping on my head, shoulder, stomach and legs and kicking me in the back," added Mrs Whiting-Willet,(pic.r.) who broke down in tears several times while giving evidence.


He said: 'I'm going to fucking kill you white bitch' and remember something very sharp and very painful that took my breath away.


"I think it was several punches to my stomach."


Mrs Whiting-Willet's sunglasses, which protect her from damaging UV exposure to her immune system, were smashed during the row.


"There was glass everywhere because my glasses were punched into my forehead and my hands and face were covered in blood.


"I think I was knocked out, I can't remember. I was face-down on the floor in the foetal position."


Husband Anders(pic.l.) was further down the bus and was also punched in the face by McCatty when he tried to calm the defendant down, the jury were told.


"I had huge bruises on my forehead and all down the side of my face with huge swelling and a cut to my forehead," Mrs Whiting-Willet told the court.


"All down my right side was black from bruising plus my thigh, even my shins and I lost a tooth.


'I was kicked so hard in the stomach I started to bleed even though it was not my period and it continued on and off for three months."


No passengers intervened and they stepped over the prone victim as they exited the bus for another service.


McCatty admitted he was the man captured on the bus's CCTV when giving himself up to police three months later, but claims he struck the couple in self-defence.


He had boarded the Kingston to Roehampton service with his partner, her seven year-old child and younger child in the buggy at 1.45pm that Sunday afternoon.


Mrs Whiting-Willet admitted lashing out, but insisted it was only after the defendant grabbed her. "It was not hard and it was only once."


McCatty told officers he "decked" Mr Whiting-Willet, but this was only after Nova told her husband: "Just hit him."


McCatty has pleaded not guilty to assaulting Mrs Whiting-Willet, causing her actual bodily harm, on September 19, last year and assaulting Anders as the bus travelled up Kingston Hill.

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