Navan woman subjected to horrific threats and abuse on bus

A terrified Navan mother was subjected to a tirade of abuse and vicious threats by two teenage girls as she travelled by bus to her home in Blackcastl on Tuesday of last week.

Sarah Vaughan, who is pregnant, had her eight months old baby in a buggy and her nine year old son, who has an injured foot with her at the time.

"I was terrified on the bus, they threatened to to bash my head in, kill me and smash my mouth open for me.

"They got off at the stop before me. I was very frightened getting off the bus, it was pitch black and I was shaking. I was horrified that my son had to experience it, he would never have seen anything like it before," she says.

"It was unbelievable. I'm still not the better of it."

She explains that she got on the N2 town bus on Tuesday evening to go to Blackcastle.

Sarah has reported the matter to the gardai and the incident was raised at a special meeting on Thursday between the council, bus driver unions and the gardai.

"I got the N2 Navan town bus on Tuesday evening from Abbey Road to Blackcastle. The bus was packed but the driver asked some young people to move so I could use the seats reserved for mothers with buggies.

"To be fair, most of them did without any problem, but as the bus started to move away from the stop two teenage girls, I would guess they were around 15 or 16, started to hurl horrific abuse at me, while my son watched on horrified.

"I asked them why they were picking on an already stressed mother with a new baby and a child and I was only met with more abuse and told that I should have walked.

"It takes 45 minutes for me to walk home with the two children and my son had an injured ankle. It was also lashing rain.

"I decided to say nothing, as a responsible parent who wanted to keep as calm as possible in front of my two children.

"They kept it going and when we going up Flower Hill, one of them said they hoped the bus crashes with the buggy on it.

"Nobody did anything except for an older woman who asked me if I was alright

"My son heard all this and he is still not the better of it, this experience has truly traumatised him from ever getting a bus again, or in fact even going out of the house to go to school again.

"I would normally walk my son home from school but because of his injured ankle we couldn't do that. My partner now has to take time off work to collect him from school, as we don't want to travel by bus again," she said.

"I actually feel sick and can’t believe after all the years I was availing of this service this is how it ended up."