Jail hooligans demand from union delegates
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• Serious and mounting concern about the growing number of assaults on bus crews was expressed during last week's biennial policy-making conference of the TGWU in Douglas, Isle of Man.
Busmen from London, Wolverhampton, and several other parts of Britain took part in major debate demanding: 1. More severe penalties against persons convicted for assaults on crews.
2. More protection for drivers and conductors during late night duties.
3. Adequate compensation to victims so that they suffer no pecuniary loss because of injury.
One London busman told the conference of threatening letters sent to garages which warned that thugs would drive "every nigger conductoroff the buses. He gave instances of a conductress being kicked down the stairs, a conductor losing an eye and another busman so brutally assaulted that he will never work on the buses again.
Speaking in support, a Wolverhampton busman said that many of the assaults in his area were directed particularly at coloured conductors, trying to frighten them out of taking any fares. He said: "The people who do these things are just thieves", There were several demands for imprisonment of offenders; for closer policing of late-night buses; more extensive use of two-way radio links; and special patrols, in cluding plain-clothes officers actually Mr. Alan Thomson, national bus secretary, replying to the debate, recalled that the union had sent one deputation already to the Home Secretary. They would continue to press at the national level for both adequate safeguards and stiffer penalties.
In the London Transport area, since 1960, there had been 650 incidents—but only 280 prosecutions.
In Glasgow, assaults had stopped completely following the death of one young conductor, attacked by hooligans. Said Mr. Thomson: "It is a tragedy that one of our people has to die before this sort of thing comes to a halt".
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