A WOMAN who said a gang tried to set fire to her hair at a crowded bus station, has criticised her fellow passengers for failing to help her.

Sarah Iveson, 25, of Stockton, said she was shocked that no one at Durham City Bus Station came to her aid.

The station was packed at about 5.30pm, on Wednesday, when three men in their late teens and early 20s walked up behind her.

Miss Iveson said she tried to walk away from them when they started to make lewd suggestions but they became more abusive towards her.

She said one of them went to light a cigarette and asked if she used hairspray. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she was pulled backwards as a cigarette lighter was clicked in her ear.

"I swung an arm out at them and managed to escape," said Miss Iveson, who works in the admissions department at Durham University's Queen Campus, in Stockton. "They then starting shouting some really, really foul stuff at me.

"Luckily they ran off shortly afterwards to get the Consett bus. I remember people had been watching me while they grabbed me but more people stared after they had gone," she said.

Miss Iveson did not inform the police because she thought she would be unable to identify the gang.

But she has written an email to the Durham Community Safety Partnership, which is made up of police and councillors, and Durham City Council, which has told the police.

City centre councillor, Robert Wynn, said: "I'm really surprised nobody helped this young woman because the people of Durham are good people, certainly no worse than anywhere else."

A Durham Police spokesman advised anyone who is attacked or suffers abuse to contact the police.

Arriva Buses, which owns the station, said customers in trouble should approach a duty inspector.