Woman successful in banana attack appeal

A 46-year-old Malmö woman, sentenced by a district court in southern Sweden to pay damages to a bus driver whom she had allegedly attacked with a banana in April last year, has managed to get her fine reduced by the appeals court.

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In the incident, which took place in Malmö in April last year, the bus driver claims that the woman attacked him unprovoked with a piece of fruit as he stopped to let some passengers off the bus.

She ran onto the vehicle, started yelling, and hit him with the banana without warning, he told the daily Aftonbladet in November.

"She hit me right in the face with the half-eaten banana. I had banana all over me, on my tie, my shirt and my eye," he told the paper, saying that the experience was particularly galling as it was witnessed by all the passengers on the bus.

Later that same day he experienced pain in his eye, and visited the doctor, who concluded that he was suffering from vitreous detachment, caused by the banana incident.

However, the woman told a different story, claiming that the bus driver had stopped the bus only inches away from hitting her and her daughter, whom she was teaching to drive. When she ran onto the bus to give him a good talking-to, the banana simply slipped out of her hand.

The Lund District Court found in the driver’s favour after a witness supported his version of events and the woman was subsequently sentenced to pay a fine as well as damages of some 6,200 kronor ($930) to the driver.

However, the woman told Aftonbladet last year that it was “unreasonable that a banana could cause this much damage" and appealed the decision.

The appeals court agreed and changed the sentence, giving her a significantly smaller fine and only 600 kronor in damages.