Hunt for thug after passenger bashed

Police are hunting a reveller who allegedly assaulted a fellow passenger after he played Good Samaritan on the Wairarapa commuter train on Tuesday.
Witness Matt Adams, who works as a lawyer in the capital, commutes daily to Wellington and was on the last train to Wairarapa from the city on Tuesday night. He said a party of about nine men had boarded at Wellington the same carriage in which he was riding. The group carried boxes of beer to their seats and were drinking as the journey progressed.
The men quickly became loud and obnoxious, he said, and a bother to other passengers who were unfortunate enough to be within earshot.
''They were acting like a bunch of inbred hillbillies having a bender in the capital.
''Eventually a guard caught one of them drinking and asked him to leave the train at Upper Hutt. He was pretty drunk and he refused to go.''
Mr Adams said a small band of male passengers came to the rescue of the guard and helped restrain the drunken man and eject him from the train at the Upper Hutt station.
The other revellers stayed on until the train reached Featherston and the group went to disembark, he said.
''One of the guys that had helped the guard got into some sort of altercation with one of them and was punched in the face. He was between the carriages near the door and fell back and hit his head,'' Mr Adams said.
''He was briefly knocked out and was bleeding quite heavily from his nose. Police and an ambulance arrived soon after and our train was delayed about an hour.''
Mr Adams, who is a former black belt karate instructor, said he had considered lending a hand when the drunken man refused to leave the train but believed the worst of the trouble had ended there. ''The rail staff and the passengers handled everything pretty well, I believe. ''But that sort of behaviour casts a bad light on more civilised passengers who enjoy a quiet drink on the train after work.''
KiwiRail spokesman Nigel Parry said the company was working closely with police over the incident and that all other passengers and train staff had escaped injury.
Featherston police Sergeant Kevin Basher said the man who was assaulted had been taken to Wairarapa Hospital after the incident. He was treated for a minor head injury and discharged.
Mr Basher said an investigation had begun into the incident.
There had been no arrests made yet. Mr Parry said KiwiRail was able to issue trespass orders banning individuals from the train, although a ban would depend on the police investigation.
He said heavy drinking was banned on KiwiRail services.