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Isle of Wight: Attack on bus driver Clive Marsden

Thugs left bus driver for dead

By County Press Reporter - Friday, November 21, 2008
Thugs left bus driver for dead
Clive Marsden’s badly bruised eye after he was kicked in the face by yobs.
A BUS driver was beaten up so badly passengers on his bus thought he was dead.
Witnesses said Clive Marsden received up to 15 punches, kicks and stamps to the head when he was attacked by youths and 37-year-old Henry Green at a bus stop outside Somerfield, in Shanklin, on July 4.
Speaking to the County Press about his terrifying ordeal, Mr Marsden said the attack had changed his life.
“I am never going to be the same again because I will always be looking over my shoulder,” he said.
Twenty-six people witnessed the vicious assault, which occurred after Mr Marsden refused to allow some teenagers onto his bus.
The previous week, he had witnessed a serious attack on Swedish students on the same bus journey and recognised a youth involved.
The father of four, said: “It was like Groundhog Day. There I was a week later, picking up the same people, on the same journey. I also had Swedish students on the bus that day so part of me was protecting them. I told the youths they weren’t getting on.”
One of them then spat in the bus driver’s face and when Mr Marsden got out of his cab he was set upon by the group.
In the prolonged attack, he suffered severe bruising to the brain, could not feel his legs or back and was taken to hospital on a spinal board.
“ I just curled up in a ball and hoped for the best. If they had a knife that would have been the end of me. If it had gone on any longer I don’t know what would have happened,” he said.
The attack, two weeks before his daughter’s wedding, left him wanting to leave the Island for fear of coming face-to-face with his attackers again.
“I don’t know if I can go back to work but it is difficult to change direction at my age,” he said.
“There is every chance I am going to bump into them. If we could’ve sold up and gone, we would have.”
Mr Marsden, who had moved from London in search of a quieter life, said he was still suffering from headaches and neck pain.
He said: “I don’t see it as a nice Island anymore. I feel like a prisoner in my own home and it has totally changed my personality. At my daughter’s wedding I kept thinking she could be following my coffin up the aisle rather than me walking alongside her.
“The last few bruises are gone and somehow I have got to get everything together to bring some normality back in my life.
“This has messed up our lives but I am very grateful to all the witnesses, the police, particularly PC Neil Mc-Donald, and my colleagues for supporting me.”

Man jailed for attack on bus driver

A MAN, who with youths as young as 14, punched and kicked a bus driver until he was nearly unconsciousness, was sent to prison for 21 months.
Henry Green and two youths, whose identities are protected, inflicted series injuries on Southern Vectis driver Clive Marsden, 52, at Landguard Road, Shanklin, on July 4.
The assault began when Mr Marsden told a 14-year-old boy he could not get on his bus as the youth had been involved in a serious assault on Swedish students on the bus, the previous week, said Roderick Blain, prosecuting.
Friends tried to pull the 14-year-old boy away but he then spat in Mr Marsden’s face.
A 15-year-old Sandown boy said he grabbed the driver to protect the other boy while a 16-year-old girl, who admitted causing actual bodily harm (ABH) after kicking out, maintained she intervened to separate Mr Marsden from the youth who spat at him.
Green, 37 of North Road, Shanklin, then struck the back of Mr Marsden’s head.
The driver then felt repeated punches, kicks and stamps to his head and body, said Mr Blain.
Green told Mr Marsden the attack would teach him a lesson for not allowing the boy on. Passengers were sickened but too afraid to intervene, such was the attack’s ferocity, the IW Crown Court heard.
Mr Marsden needed a scan for three brain injuries and was treated for bruising to his left eye, back, both legs and a swollen hand. He also received counselling for anxiety, still suffers headaches and remains off work.
Green’s criminal record comprises 29 convictions for 52 offences, including affray.
Ethu Crorie, for Green, said his client did not recall kicking Mr Marsden because he thought Mr Marsden was attacking the teenager.
“Green waded in — far and beyond what was acceptable. Alcohol misuse is key to his recent problems,” said Mr Crorie.
The 14-year-old, who sparked the fracas and is currently in custody for attacking Swedish students, was given a two-year anti-social behaviour order and a drug treatment order.
Green was jailed after admitting ABH, while the girl was given 12-month referral and parenting orders and ordered to pay Mr Marsden £50 compensation.
Two other 15-year-olds were cleared of assault following a trial at the Isle of Wight Youth Court.