The international student was the only passenger on the bus heading to West Auckland when she was groped just after 10pm. Photo / 123RF
A bus driver shut off the indoor lights of his bus late one night, refused to open the doors and asked a lone passenger if he could kiss her hand.
Fearing for her life the woman, who was an international student, offered up her hand.
Driver Kartik Kamiesh Kumar kissed it before rubbing the 46-year-old woman’s breast - an act for which he was charged with indecent assault.
Kumar denied the charge in a judge-alone trial in the Waitakere District Court yesterday, claiming he had grabbed the victim’s wrist because he thought she stole something.
But Judge Terry Singh ruled the charge was proven as he found the victim’s story was “consistent” with the bus’s CCTV footage, while Kumar’s evidence was “self-serving”.
The victim appeared via audio visual link from her home country and was assisted by a translator who was present in court.
She said last year she was a student at an English language school in the Auckland CBD.
She would catch two buses to and from the school and her home in West Auckland.
On February 12 of last year, she finished school at 9.30pm and began her journey home.
She stepped on to her second bus around 10.10pm and did what she “always did” - said “hi” to the driver, tagged on with her Auckland Transport card and sat down.
She was listening to music on her wireless headphones until she noticed the driver was trying to say something to her.
Thinking she might have forgotten to tag on, she stood up to talk to the driver and in the process dropped her headphones.
She bent down to pick them up, went to talk to Kumar, and was surprised to learn he wanted to talk about “personal things”.
He asked her how old she was, where she came from and why she was riding on the bus.
The victim said she had been in New Zealand for a few months and did not feel any “strangeness” with the conversation as New Zealanders were “very friendly”.
But, when they reached her stop, Kumar did not open the doors.
The victim said he asked, “Please let me hug you” but she responded she couldn’t because she had a boyfriend.
She told the court she felt “quite bad” because this was a “tough situation”.
Then, Kumar asked her if he could kiss her hand.
The victim wanted to refuse but, alone with Kumar on the bus, and “very scared”, she felt she might “be killed” if she said no.
She reluctantly held out her hand and he kissed it.
The court viewed dark, black and white CCTV footage from the bus, which showed the moment where she appeared to lift her arm.
When asked by police prosecutor Jazween Mala what happened next, the victim held a tissue up to her face and began to cry.
“Rather than saying he touched my breast, it would rather be he rubbed repeatedly on my breast,” the victim told the court.
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.
Kumar took the stand, assisted by a Hindi translator, and told the court he had been driving buses for 13 years.
He said after the victim boarded the bus, he heard a “loud” noise of something falling on the floor.
He saw the victim move to pick it up before approaching him.
“I was not feeling comfortable because she was standing on the left side of my seat ... moving between me and the left side,” he said.
She had her headphones in a case in her hand, and he accused her of taking property left on the bus for herself.
This is when he said he first grabbed her wrist.
Then, he said she started threatening to press the emergency exit button which would open the doors.
He said he again held her wrist to stop her from pressing the button and “falling out” of a moving vehicle.
He said she was frustrated and yelling and, when she left the bus, told him she was going to make a complaint.
While cross-examining Kumar, Mala pointed out that he was in sole control of the bus’s lights and opening the doors.
Apart from the emergency exit button, which could open doors, Kumar countered.
She also poked holes in Kumar suspecting the victim’s headphones were “stolen property”.
“[There was] no one else on the bus who could have dropped the item, isn’t that correct?” she challenged.
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.
Kumar denied turning the lights off as the victim approached him.
Mala replayed the bus CCTV, which had been professionally lightened by a photography studio.
Kumar agreed that the lights were on, then, three minutes into the victim’s ride, when the footage appeared to darken, he claimed the lights were still on.
Pavlovich Coachlines operations manager Andre Dreyer, Kumar’s then boss, read his police statement from April 2025 to the court.
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 because of staff shortages.
He never had any issues with Kumar and found him to be nice, quiet, and reliable.
When he was made aware of the victim’s police complaint, he viewed the bus’s CCTV footage.
He could see from the footage an action that looked like Kumar kissing the victim’s hand and later touching her shoulder.
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.
In an official meeting a few days later Kumar denied the victim’s allegation and gave his explanation.
Dreyer accepted his explanation and chose to educate him so he would not make these mistakes in the future.
“We made it very clear that he is not to physically touch passengers.”
Kumar returned to driving buses until he became unable to drive because of court conditions.
A representative for Pavlovich Coachlines said it would be “inappropriate” to comment further on this case as it was a “judicial” matter.
Judge Singh said it was “telling” when Kumar would not admit the lights switched off.
The judge “took the view” that Kumar had turned off the lights “deliberately” to obscure the indecent assault from the CCTV cameras.
He said the victim made believable concessions, such as that she was groped for only three seconds and “reluctantly consented” to having her hand kissed.
He found the charge proved, but Kumar’s lawyer, Angus Graham, asked that a conviction not be entered yet, as it would cause immigration issues for Kumar.
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.
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’s currently based in Auckland covering justice-related stories.