Child left crying and covered in glass as thug hurls stone through bus window in Havant

Mother-of-two Sarah Lay claims her children were '˜hysterical' after glass rained in on them during the incident on Wednesday afternoon. 

The 34-year-old from Stamshaw boarded the Stagecoach 20 service at 2.01pm from the Staunton Park stop in Havant, with her daughter Norah and 11-month-old son, Reuben. 

But no later than five minutes into their journey back toward Portsmouth, their day out took a terrifying turn '“ when a youth launched a stone at a window close to where they were sitting. 

'˜We were coming down Dunsbury Way [in Havant] when I saw a lad stood there,' Sarah said. 

'˜I looked him in the eye, then he raised his arm and threw something at the window and it smashed. 

'˜My little girl had glass shattered all in her hair, was crying, and my boy woke up from his sleep. 

'˜We were certainly all frightened, but Norah was hysterical for about an hour afterwards.' 

Continuing on past the scene of the ordeal, the driver let the trio off at Park Parade, before Sarah called her husband who drove to Leigh Park to meet her. 

Thankfully, she said, there were '˜very few' people on the bus when the drama unfolded. 

'˜After the driver got past Dunsbury Way he asked who was travelling where '“ it seemed to me as though he wanted to get people where they needed to be before stopping to look at the damage,' she said. 

'˜The sound the stone made when it hit was awful and if I had not seen him [the youth] throw it, I would have thought it was something much worse. 

'˜I now feel the need to make others aware that this sort of thing is happening.' 

The incident on Wednesday follows a spate of attacks on taxis in the centre of Havant earlier this year. 

In one instance, in April, a female 626 driver was injured and '˜shaken up' after vandals smashed her front passenger window while she was carrying a customer. 

A spokeswoman for Stagecoach said: '˜One of our vehicles was involved in an incident on Wednesday, August 15 in Havant in which one of the windows was broke. Thankfully no was injured. This is was an act of vandalism and we are assisting police with their enquiries into the incident.'