On Thursday, October 25, my friend B was the victim of an unprovoked attack near Churchill Square, Brighton.

It was just after 11am and she was standing at the No 7 bus stop. The assailant was a total stranger, a white man in his late 20s with a shaved head and rings in his lip, eyebrow and ears. He approached her, swearing, punched her twice in the chest and then, when she fell to the ground, kicked her. B is 66 years old and black. There were five witnesses to the attack, the other people in the bus queue. Not one of them so much as bent down to ask B if she was all right.

When the bus came, all five got on. B remained on the pavement, too shocked and too bruised to follow. She was also, she said, "too ashamed - those people must have thought I had done something really bad". I hope none of those five people ever faces an assailant as brutal and despicable as the one B faced. But, if they do, I hope they are surrounded by people ready to show more care and humanity than they showed last Thursday.

-Nicola King, jimnic@mistral.co.uk