Michael Plummer, 44, deliberately sat next to the victim, who was on his way to work, and aimed a volley of racial abuse at him, York Crown Court heard.
Two female acquaintances of Plummer sat behind the victim and aimed racial slurs at him, forcing him to get up and look for a seat in another part of the bus, only to be subjected to another torrent of racial abuse from Plummer, said prosecutor Kelly Clarke.
She said the victim felt uncomfortable as soon as Plummer and the women sat down next to him because they smelled of alcohol and cannabis.
As the victim moved further down the bus, Plummer shouted a deeply offensive racial comment at him “at the top of his voice” and told him “what are you going to do about it?”, the court heard.
The medical worker walked back up the bus and grabbed Plummer by the collar and tried to remove him from the bus as Plummer continued to hurl racial abuse at him.
“The two females began punching (the victim),” said Ms Clarke.
“He punched one of them to protect himself and then (Plummer) began punching (the victim).”
The bus driver pressed the emergency button, whereupon Plummer and the two women got off the bus and ran off.
The incident happened in November 2022 after Plummer and the two women got onto the bus in Leeman Road.
The victim, who suffered a cut to his finger, said he tried to work his normal shift after the incident but was so shaken up his NHS bosses sent him home.
The study document he was supposed to hand in on the day of the attack was covered in blood and dirt, as was his NHS uniform, the court heard.
The victim, who used to work as a security guard, added: “The scare it gave to me and my family has affected me badly.”
He said he was subjected to a “stream of racial abuse throughout” the attack and that “no-one tried to help me or told them to stop”.
“Not one person asked if I was alright,” he said.
“Weeks later, I was still having nightmares. It affects me to this day: I won’t get on a bus if there are too many people on it. I still have flashbacks.”
He added: “I thought that this would never happen in York. It’s sickening.”
He had been off work for the few months prior to Plummer’s sentence due to the stress of the court case and not knowing if his assailant was going to plead guilty. He had now been referred for specialist trauma counselling because of the “huge” effect it had had on him and his family.
York man Plummer – who was homeless at the time of the incident and is still of no fixed address – was bailed following his arrest but less than a year later he went on another violent spree – this time against police officers.
In the early hours of September 26 last year, police were called to Stonegate after Plummer was seen entering premises and leaving with a cushion. An officer found him lying in a shop doorway, wearing just boxer shorts and a T-shirt and “mumbling to himself”.
The officer took the cushion off him and went to look for a blanket to keep him warm. When he returned with a foil blanket, Plummer grabbed it, swore at the officer and spat in his face, the court was told.
He was again arrested and given bail, but the following evening he was involved in another drunken “altercation” and ended up bleeding from the mouth.
When officers were called, they found Plummer sitting in the doorway of The Spar shop in Bridge Street, shouting and swearing at people and preventing them entering the store.
Two officers arrived to find him “pressing a doughnut into his blood-soaked gums”. He then threw the blood-covered doughnut at one of the officers, “striking him in the chest and staining (his uniform) with blood”.
Four days later, Plummer, still at large, stole a crate of Carling lager from Tesco Express in Low Ousegate. Police were called and two officers found him supping alcohol near All Saints Church on Pavement.
As one of the officers tried to take a can of lager off him, Plummer “kicked out” at him and was arrested again on suspicion of theft.
Plummer was ultimately charged with racially aggravated assault and public disorder, theft and three counts of assaulting a police officer. He admitted the offences and was sentenced on Monday, March 11, after being remanded in custody in September last year.
His guilty pleas were offered after consultant psychiatrists deemed him fit to plead despite a subsequent diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.
Plummer had three previous convictions for drink-related public disorder.
Neil Cutte, for Plummer, said his client’s life had been on a “downward spiral” since the death of his mother a few years ago which led him into “bad company”, criminality and drug-taking.
Judge Sean Morris said the “nasty, disgraceful” attacks on the NHS worker and police who were trying to help him could only be met by an immediate jail sentence.
Plummer was jailed for 12 months but will only spend a fraction of that time behind bars due to the time he had already spent on remand.
