A Sydney woman who was filmed hurling racist abuse at a Chinese-Australian passenger on a bus in the city’s north has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of assault and using offensive language.
The recording, the latest addition to the depressingly broad canon of racist public transport abuse videos that Australia churns out on the regular, was shared earlier this week by the victim Lindsay Li.
After the clip went viral, it emerged that the woman shown was being investigated after reports of multiple assaults in and around transport hubs in North Sydney, Bondi Junction, Edgecliff, Parramatta, Eastwood and Hornsby.
Police have received a number of complaints about the woman, with a number of people, including a woman and her son at Edgecliff Train Station, alleging that she had approached and spat on them in recent weeks.
Yesterday morning, a teenage passenger was boarding a train at Parramatta when the same woman approached and spat on her; the 55-year-old, whose name has not been released, was arrested at Guildford a short time later.
So this happened to me today..Its unbelievable the amount of hate one person can spew out..
Posted by Lindsay Li on Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Li has sought legal advice in the wake of the incident, and says that she hopes the woman is held accountable. She wrote in a subsequent Facebook post:
“Imagine if it was my 10 year old sister or my father that was assaulted and how difficult it would be for them to defend themselves! I don’t care what other idiots think. It’s just important for me as an immigrant to this country that I don’t feel like a second class citizen.”
The woman faces six counts of common assault and two of using offensive language.
