“Her voice was somewhat raised, although I couldn’t understand her, but I did not hear him raise his voice,” Assistant Despatcher Saviour Grech told the court when he took the witness stand in the case of bus driver Christopher Tonna.
The incident occurred last June, when Isabel Reymundo Cuesta and a friend were allegedly attacked by Tonna, when she politely asked to be given the correct change.
The bus driver stands charged with falling short of the respect that should have been shown to the Spanish woman. Mr Grech said that as far as he heard, the driver had never sworn at or been verbally rough to the tourist.
All he might have done was ask her to sit down, he said, as he recounted how the driver had told him that he asked Ms Cuesta to sit down for the time being, and he would give her the change later, but she refused.
“He could not drive off with her standing up,” he said. Mr Grech then suggested that she should go and file a complaint, which she did.
Ms Cuesta wrote to The Malta Independent, explaining that she and a friend boarded a bus to Marsaxlokk, and paid €1 for the two tickets. As the fare amounted in all to €0.94, she asked for the €0.06 change, which the driver refused to give her.
She claimed that despite the driver’s small change bowl overflowing with €0.01 and €0.02 cent coins, he refused, and he allegedly “started screaming and yelling out loud”. He told them to sit down and allegedly became violent, when they reminded him of their rights.
He reportedly pulled Ms Cuesta from her arms and threatened to throw her out of the bus. He then snatched the tickets, throwing them to the floor with the €1 coin.
Transport Malta official Andrew Hayden, who also testified, said the bus driver had been suspended from his duties for three months already, since the incident took place.
Ms Cuesta returned to Malta last weekend for “a pleasant long weekend break in Malta”, all expenses paid, courtesy of the Malta Tourism Authority. She enjoyed a stay in one of the five-star hotels in the St Julian’s area.