Woman ‘sexually assaulted by man who stroked and kissed her stomach’ on coach trip

Kat Davies boarded a National Express service from London to her hometown of Barnsley in September last year- and says she ‘may never take a coach again’ after what happened next.

A fan of West End musicals, Kat says she was used to travelling alone on the low-cost coaches which allowed her to catch London shows without having to stay in the city overnight.

But the 27-year-old was shocked when a middle-aged male passenger sitting next to her pretended to fall asleep on her shoulder and resisted her continued attempts to shove him off.

Kat claims the man began ‘stroking’ and ‘kissing’ her ‘stomach, waist and side’ which happened ‘several times over the next hour’.

She was too scared to call out for help but eventually gained the confidence to move to an empty seat where she spent the remainder of her journey ‘shaking and trying not to cry’.

But her ordeal was far from over when she decided to report the incident in the hope that no future passengers would have the same horrible experience.

While National Express coaches are equipped with CCTV, it turned out the footage of the journey in question had been deleted- and police were unable to progress with an appeal.

When Kat asked the company to outline their procedures in the event of a sex assault on-board, she felt this wasn’t taken seriously.

Kat said: “I can’t hold National Express responsible for what happened, but as a regular user of the service I’d want to know that there are better.

“Theatre and the West End are a really big part of my life, but I don’t know if I’d ever have the courage to get on a coach again even to see the shows I love.

“On the night of the incident I looked for a spare seat towards the front of the coach but they were all full.

“Later when I suggested the company sit female passengers in the first five rows as a matter of priority- I was told these seats could be booked specifically, but for a fee.

“It just leads me to believe they value profit over safety. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

A spokesperson for National Express said: “We want to say once again how sorry we are to hear about Ms Davies’ experience and acknowledge we could have done better in how we have communicated with her in the time since.

“As soon as she reported the incident we instructed the operator, who runs the 465 service on our behalf, to retain the CCTV footage.

“We believed this had been done but something clearly went wrong and while we unfortunately can’t undo this, we are reviewing our processes to ensure it won’t happen again.

“Any incident of this nature is one too many but coach is a safe travel option and as well as CCTV, National Express has other measures in place to help keep our customers safe including a text service with live response and drivers trained to provide support.

“The use of the front nearside seat on all National Express coaches is given as a priority for any passengers requiring additional support and can be reserved free of charge by speaking to our Assisted Travel Team in advance of travelling.”

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