Tristan James Irving sentenced for assaulting bus driver, police officer
A man has been ordered to write two apology letters after punching a senior bus driver who ‘couldn’t blow a candle out’ and putting a police officer in a headlock to prevent an arrest.
Illawarra Star
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A man who has proved to be a menace for bus drivers in the Illawarra has been sentenced for two separate run-ins in 18 months.
Tristan James Irving, 43, learned his fate in Wollongong Local Court after previously pleading guilty to four charges including affray, assaulting an officer in the execution of their duty, obstructing a driver’s path and driving a motor vehicle with a suspended licence.
The first fracas occurred just before 6pm on January 19, 2021, when Irving tried to board a bus in Dapto despite having insufficient funds on his Opal card.
Court documents detail how Irving and the man became involved in a verbal argument before the offender grabbed some paper from the till and threw it at the victim.
The bus driver grabbed Irving‘s arm, with a scuffle spilling out of the bus and onto the footpath.
The documents indicated both men threw a number of punches, with the two wrestling each other to the ground before police arrived to intervene.
Footage from the CCTV on the bus captured the incident and was shown in court.
Irving sustained scratches to his neck and a torn short while the bus driver suffered cuts to his head.
Police charged both men with affray, however, the bus driver’s charge was withdrawn and dismissed in Port Kembla Local Court last year.
The second incident happened in May this year when, shortly before 6pm, Irving along with a teenage girl he was with, stood in the path of a bus trying to exit a stop outside the Piccadilly Motor Inn in Wollongong.
The court documents said police arrived and ordered them multiple times to step off the road.
They refused and officers opted to intervene.
Another teenage girl who was with them chucked an object at one of the officers and struck him in the mouth.
The officer went to arrest the girl but Irving grabbed him from behind and placed him in a headlock to prevent the arrest.
The court documents said Irving and the officer scuffled to the ground where the two teenagers kicked the victim in the head multiple times before other police came to their colleague’s aid.
The officer suffered pain to his back and neck as well as a bleeding face and grazes on his elbow during the incident which was picked up on several CCTV cameras.
In court on Tuesday, Magistrate Robert Walker heard there was an element of self-defence in the punch-up incident, however, he said the bus driver “was an old fella, he couldn’t blow a candle out”.
Police prosecutor Sergeant David Weaver said the threshold for a jail sentence was “clearly crossed” because footage of the first incident showed Irving “dragging him up and down the footpath”.
Mr Walker handed down two concurrent 12-month intensive correction orders for the two sets of offending.
The magistrate also ordered Irving write a letter of apology to the two victims and fined him $200 for obstructing the bus.
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