Three teenage girls were punched and kicked in an unprovoked attack allegedly by foreign students.

One of the victims said: "You hear about English people attacking foreigners but these two were completely out of order."

Katie Tipping, 15, and Sarah Creasey and Vicki Wood, both 14, had just got off a bus in Coldean when two older youths began assaulting them.

The attackers had called the girls names on the bus after they had left Hollingbury Youth Club on Wednesday night.

When they got off the bus, Katie was hit with a 2p coin thrown by one of the older youths.

When Katie called her mother on her mobile phone, the youths began attacking them. Katie was kicked and punched, bruising her ribs, and she fell to the ground, hitting her head.

She spent most of the night at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, suffering suspected concussion.

Her friends were assaulted as they tried to defend her.

Police arrested two 17-year-old Swiss students who have been released on bail.

Katie's mother, Gwen, said: "I am disgusted and if I don't get satisfaction from the courts then I intend writing to the government of the country where these students come from."

Vicki, nursing bruises under an eye and on an arm and a knee, said she jumped on the back of one of the attackers when he assaulted Katie: "That's when I got hit. These two boys just lost it."