{"id":412595,"date":"2026-05-05T08:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T08:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/412595\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T08:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T08:31:08","slug":"bus-driver-found-guilty-of-trapping-student-on-bus-indecently-assaulting-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/412595\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus driver found guilty of trapping student on bus, indecently assaulting her"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kumar denied the charge in a judge-alone trial in the Waitakere District Court<\/a> yesterday, claiming he had grabbed the victim\u2019s wrist because he thought she stole something.<\/p>\n

But Judge Terry Singh ruled the charge was proven as he found the victim\u2019s story was \u201cconsistent\u201d with the bus\u2019s CCTV footage, while Kumar\u2019s evidence was \u201cself-serving\u201d.<\/p>\n

An international student boards a bus<\/p>\n

The victim appeared via audio visual link from her home country and was assisted by a translator who was present in court.<\/p>\n

She said last year she was a student at an English language school in the Auckland CBD.<\/p>\n

She would catch two buses to and from the school and her home in West Auckland.<\/p>\n

On February 12 of last year, she finished school at 9.30pm and began her journey home.<\/p>\n

She stepped on to her second bus around 10.10pm and did what she \u201calways did\u201d – said \u201chi\u201d to the driver, tagged on with her Auckland Transport<\/a> card and sat down.<\/p>\n

She was listening to music on her wireless headphones until she noticed the driver was trying to say something to her.<\/p>\n

Thinking she might have forgotten to tag on, she stood up to talk to the driver and in the process dropped her headphones. <\/p>\n

She bent down to pick them up, went to talk to Kumar, and was surprised to learn he wanted to talk about \u201cpersonal things\u201d.<\/p>\n

He asked her how old she was, where she came from and why she was riding on the bus.<\/p>\n

The victim said she had been in New Zealand for a few months and did not feel any \u201cstrangeness\u201d with the conversation as New Zealanders were \u201cvery friendly\u201d.<\/p>\n

But, when they reached her stop, Kumar did not open the doors.<\/p>\n

The victim said he asked, \u201cPlease let me hug you\u201d but she responded she couldn\u2019t because she had a boyfriend.<\/p>\n

She told the court she felt \u201cquite bad\u201d because this was a \u201ctough situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then, Kumar asked her if he could kiss her hand.<\/p>\n

The victim wanted to refuse but, alone with Kumar on the bus, and \u201cvery scared\u201d, she felt she might \u201cbe killed\u201d if she said no.<\/p>\n

She reluctantly held out her hand and he kissed it.<\/p>\n

The court viewed dark, black and white CCTV footage from the bus, which showed the moment where she appeared to lift her arm.<\/p>\n

When asked by police prosecutor Jazween Mala what happened next, the victim held a tissue up to her face and began to cry.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than saying he touched my breast, it would rather be he rubbed<\/a> repeatedly on my breast,\u201d the victim told the court.<\/p>\n

This lasted for about three seconds, she said, before the doors opened, she fled the bus, called her boyfriend and, around midnight, filed a police report.<\/p>\n

\"AA still of CCTV footage from inside the bus at the moment a passenger said bus driver Kartik Kumar kissed her hand. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The defendant takes the stand<\/p>\n

Kumar took the stand, assisted by a Hindi translator, and told the court he had been driving buses for 13 years.<\/p>\n

He said after the victim boarded the bus, he heard a \u201cloud\u201d noise of something falling on the floor.<\/p>\n

He saw the victim move to pick it up before approaching him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not feeling comfortable because she was standing on the left side of my seat … moving between me and the left side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She had her headphones in a case in her hand, and he accused her of taking property left on the bus for herself.<\/p>\n

This is when he said he first grabbed her wrist.<\/p>\n

Then, he said she started threatening to press the emergency exit button which would open the doors.<\/p>\n

He said he again held her wrist to stop her from pressing the button and \u201cfalling out\u201d of a moving vehicle.<\/p>\n

He said she was frustrated and yelling and, when she left the bus, told him she was going to make a complaint.<\/p>\n

Lights on, lights off<\/p>\n

While cross-examining Kumar, Mala pointed out that he was in sole control of the bus\u2019s lights and opening the doors.<\/p>\n

Apart from the emergency exit button, which could open doors, Kumar countered.<\/p>\n

She also poked holes in Kumar suspecting the victim\u2019s headphones were \u201cstolen property\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[There was] no one else on the bus who could have dropped the item, isn\u2019t that correct?\u201d she challenged.<\/p>\n

An earlier passenger could have left an item on the seat, which could have fallen from the chair while he was driving and alone with the victim, he replied.<\/p>\n

Kumar denied turning the lights off as the victim approached him.<\/p>\n

Mala replayed the bus CCTV, which had been professionally lightened by a photography studio.<\/p>\n

Kumar agreed that the lights were on, then, three minutes into the victim\u2019s ride, when the footage appeared to darken, he claimed the lights were still on.<\/p>\n

Kumar\u2019s employer<\/p>\n

Pavlovich Coachlines operations manager Andre Dreyer, Kumar\u2019s then boss, read his police statement from April 2025 to the court.<\/p>\n

It detailed that Kumar had worked for the company for 18 months and had been hired, with around 50 other drivers, from an agency in Fiji <\/a>because of staff shortages.<\/p>\n

He never had any issues with Kumar and found him to be nice, quiet, and reliable.<\/p>\n

When he was made aware of the victim\u2019s police complaint, he viewed the bus\u2019s CCTV footage.<\/p>\n

He could see from the footage an action that looked like Kumar kissing the victim\u2019s hand and later touching her shoulder.<\/p>\n

When he asked Kumar if he remembered any incidents with passengers that week, the driver initially said no, and Dreyer showed him the CCTV footage.<\/p>\n

In an official meeting a few days later Kumar denied the victim\u2019s allegation and gave his explanation.<\/p>\n

Dreyer accepted his explanation and chose to educate him so he would not make these mistakes in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made it very clear that he is not to physically touch passengers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kumar returned to driving buses until he became unable to drive because of court conditions.<\/p>\n

A representative for Pavlovich Coachlines said it would be \u201cinappropriate\u201d to comment further on this case as it was a \u201cjudicial\u201d matter.<\/p>\n

\u2018Telling evidence\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Singh said it was \u201ctelling\u201d when Kumar would not admit the lights switched off.<\/p>\n

The judge \u201ctook the view\u201d that Kumar had turned off the lights \u201cdeliberately\u201d to obscure the indecent assault from the CCTV cameras.<\/p>\n

He said the victim made believable concessions, such as that she was groped for only three seconds and \u201creluctantly consented\u201d to having her hand kissed.<\/p>\n

He found the charge proved, but Kumar\u2019s lawyer, Angus Graham, asked that a conviction not be entered yet, as it would cause immigration issues for Kumar.<\/p>\n

The lawyer indicated he may make a bid for a discharge without conviction for his client and an appointment was made at the end of May to fix a discharge hearing or sentencing date.<\/p>\n

Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s currently based in Auckland covering justice-related stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kumar denied the charge in a judge-alone trial in the Waitakere District Court yesterday, claiming he had grabbed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13916,51247,30482,124,6741,19552,1874,3368,6540,1364,51669,69620,19727,4507,25140,2736,111,139,2551,69,1118,90,5493,14734,34600,6753,213,9631,32323],"class_list":["post-412595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asked","tag-assaulting","tag-bus","tag-could","tag-doors","tag-driver","tag-found","tag-guilty","tag-hand","tag-her","tag-indecently","tag-indoor","tag-kiss","tag-late","tag-lights","tag-lone","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-open","tag-passenger","tag-refused","tag-shut","tag-sports","tag-student","tag-trapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}