Two girls attacked in aggravated robbery on Auckland bus to Sylvia Park

Auckland Transport data shows bus drivers were assaulted 51 times and verbally abused more than 120 times in 2023. Photo / RNZ / Diego Opatowski

Two girls on an outing to a mall were assaulted and robbed by a group of youths in broad daylight on an Auckland bus.

Auckland deputy mayor Desley Simpson said she immediately contacted Auckland Transport after hearing of the attack.

“This incident happened in my ward, and the unprovoked attack on these two girls is both shocking and unacceptable,” Simpson said.

Simpson said, after the attack, a top-level meeting of city police and transport bosses would be taking place in September.

The incident, which follows a spate of violent attacks on public transport, left the teens with facial injuries and is now the focus of a police investigation.

Auckland Transport confirmed they were aware of the attack and said the bus operator had provided footage of the attack to police.

Auckland City East CIB acting detective senior sergeant Anthony Darvill said police were following “positive lines of inquiry” into the aggravated robbery.

The two girls boarded a bus on West Tamaki Rd near the intersection with St Heliers Bay Rd at about 1pm on August 17.

“A group of young males and females have made demands for property towards the two victims,” Darvill said.

Both victims were assaulted on the bus in broad daylight, and one of the girls sustained bruising to her face.

“Following the incident, police located and spoke to a group of young people.

In June, a schoolboy had three teeth knocked out and a further two teeth damaged after he was randomly attacked on an Auckland bus. Photo / File

“We are continuing to make enquiries into the matter,” Darvill said.

The two girls, understood to be 14 years old, were “badly shaken” by the attack while they were on the way to Sylvia Park shopping mall, a social media post said.

Simpson said that yesterday Auckland Transport held a community meeting with the retail association, local MPs, Local Boards, NZ Police, youth advocates, churches and others.

“The goal is to establish a coordinated approach and information-sharing across agencies and communities, and I am pleased to see that everyone is receptive and eager to participate.

“These groups are being formed across various districts to address and find solutions to the issues we’re witnessing, particularly involving youth,” Simpson said.

In April, a man was charged with assault after punching and kicking a driver in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby.

In July, police arrested a 39-year-old woman after she attacked a schoolboy with a metal rod on an Auckland bus.

Latest figures from Auckland Transport confirm violence against bus drivers appears to be climbing.

According to the data, the number of assaults against drivers in the first six months of 2024 rose to 33, up from 21 over the same period a year earlier.

Fifty-one assaults on drivers were logged with AT over 2023, with more than 120 cases of verbal abuse registered in that period.

Twenty-four assaults on drivers were recorded by AT in 2022, ranging from minor to severe, as well as more than 50 accounts of verbal abuse.

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.