A York judge jailed a man for more than three years to crack down on an "epidemic" of violence on local buses.

Sean Stuart Carter, 29, subjected elderly people, women and children to prolonged swearing and abuse on a journey from Leeds to Malton, York Crown Court heard.

When John Watson, a bus driver for 20 years, tried to eject him on the outskirts of York, the passenger went "ballistic", repeatedly punched him in the face and fought him, said prosecutor Alan Mitcheson.

"You frightened him to death," Judge Jonathan Crabtree told Carter.

"You may well have turned him into a nervous wreck.

"There is no way in which staff of public transport undertakings should have to put up with this kind of mindless violence. The only thing we (judges) can do to try to protect people like that is to pass sentences that might frighten violent young men."

Earlier he had said: "There seems to be an epidemic of trouble on buses in recent years. A number of local bus services simply have to be stopped in the evening because the drivers daren't take them out."

He jailed Carter for two-and-a half years for the attack on Mr Watson and added three months for threatening police who answered the driver's call for help, plus six months unserved of an 18-month sentence for violence.

He heard that Carter was released half-way through that sentence only hours before the attack on Mr Watson.

Carter, of Noster Place, Beeston, Leeds, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm and a public order offence.

Mr Mitcheson said Mr Watson suffered cuts and bruises and had blood streaming from his face when police reached the bus at Stockton-on-the-Forest.

The trouble began as the early afternoon Coastliner bus passed through Tadcaster on December 21. Carter, who was drunk, was smoking on the non-smoking upper deck.

He put out his cigarette at Mr Watson's request, but at Stonebow, York, went downstairs and started "haranguing" and frightening passengers.

At Galtres Road, the driver told Carter to leave, but the Leeds man "went ballistic".

When police arrived, Carter threatened to burgle their homes and hurled sexual insults at a woman officer. He later said he had had a bottle of whisky, a bottle of sherry and four cans of lager the same day.

For Carter, Paul Fleming said he had been drinking because he had just got out of jail and had shared the alcohol with some friends.

He had been on his way to see his terminally-ill father and had written a letter of apology to the driver. Carter claimed he suffered from epilepsy following a childhood fracture to his skull and this may have had an effect on his actions on December 21.

But after watching a video of the attack, the judge said it did not seem like an epileptic fit.

Updated: 11:29 Tuesday, February 27, 2001