Peter William Tione, 43, was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to assault with intent to injure, assault in a family relationship, assault and speaking threateningly.
The court heard that on May 29 last year, Tione overtook a school bus on State Highway 1 heading towards Pine Hill.
He put his arm out of his car window and pulled the finger at the bus, and the driver responded by doing the same.
When the bus stopped Tione parked in front of it and walked on.
He yelled at the victim: "You were going too slow from Bank St!"
The bus driver explained the area was a school zone and he had to drive slowly.
Tione grabbed him by the collar and shook him violently.
He left and carried on driving, as did the bus.
At the end of the route the driver spotted the defendant nearby.
When the victim let a student off, Tione got on to the bus again and said “you need to watch out ... you know what happened with that Indian guy over there?”
The driver — of Indian origin — felt scared because he thought he was referring to the death of Gurjit Singh in Pine Hill four months earlier.
Tione admitted the offending to police and said he was annoyed the bus cut him off.
The children on the bus were frightened by the incident, as was the bus driver, the court heard.
Earlier last year, on February 17, Tione also drunkenly beat up two women.
He had been drinking at a Dunedin address with one woman when the other came home from night shift and an argument erupted.
The defendant stood over one woman and punched her in the face multiple times.
She fell to the ground and the defendant continued delivering blows.
The other woman tried to stop the attack but Tione also punched her.
Once the first victim was able to stand up, Tione struck her in the face again.
Three children in the house witnessed the assault, court documents noted.
The first victim had a bruised forehead, scratches on her neck and a bloodied lip, while the other suffered a minor injury.
Yesterday, counsel Kelly Beazley said a sentence of community detention would best suit her client as he had four children in his care.
Judge Dominic Flatley thought a harsher penalty was warranted.
"Both sets of offending are appalling, Mr Tione, and I am bewildered that you have four children in your care," the judge said.
He said the attack on the bus driver "appears to have been ethnically motivated" and was "unprovoked".
"The public will be horrified," he said.
Judge Flatley sentenced Tione to seven months’ home detention.
