A pregnant Muslim woman was racially abused by a drunk man who branded her a "terrorist" in a 15 minute tirade on a London bus while passengers looked on without intervening, it has been claimed.

The Turkish victim faced a barrage of abuse as she travelled on a 259 bus along Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park.

It was only when her abuser threatened to punch her that a man stepped in to protect her, witnesses said.

The bus driver, who remained in his cabin, stopped the bus and told passengers to get off once he was alerted to the abuse.

He called police who arrived on the scene moments later.

Charity worker Betta Elisa watched the events unfold as she travelled to work.

The 40-year-old Sicilian, who lives in Tottenham, said she was "surprised" that no one stepped in to help the woman for at least 15 minutes, adding that one man only moved to restrain the abuser when he threatened to punch her.

She said she was one of two women who stayed with the victim while her sister was called to collect her.

She told the Standard: "What surprised me even more is that no one went to comfort the victim. She was stroking her belly because she was six months pregnant.

"I felt really sad because this should not happen.

"I do not know if it was because it happened in London. We live in an individual world now. We need more of a sense of community. People just do not want to get involved."

Describing the incident, she said: "I was on my way to work and I heard someone talking loudly. It was this man with a bottle of beer.

"He was obviously drunk.

"He started shouting. He was saying things like 'B****, get back to your country'. He called her a Muslim terrorist. His English was quite broken.

"He was really aggressive. She was crying loudly.

"He leaned forward to punch her.

"But a man intervened and stopped him.

"Before that, no one was saying anything. I was going to help but another woman stopped me and said it was dangerous. Now I wish I had."

Fiyaz Mughal, director of Islamophobia watchdog Tell MAMA, said the case was one of an increasing number of attacks on Muslim women after the Paris terrorist killings.

He said: “We have received cases post Paris that show a marked spike in anti-Muslim hate incidents, where at a street level, Muslim women are the ones being targeted.

"Their visibility, with their hijabs, sadly means that they are targeted and in a number of cases, Muslim women have said that no member of the public intervened to stop the abuse.

"This is worrying and there is much more work to do around community education in how to deal with such situations and in a manner that does not put yourself at risk.”

Transport for London insists the number of racist crimes per passenger journey has remained "stable" at about one crime for every three million passenger journeys over the last five years.

Steve Burton, Transport for London's director of enforcement and on-street operations, said: “We do not tolerate racist behaviour of any kind on our bus network and the police are currently investigating this incident."

Scotland Yard said a man had been arrested following the attack incident on Monday morning (November 23).

The incident comes just one month after video footage of another pregnant Muslim woman being abused on a bus in north west London went viral.

Simone Joseph, 36, of Angel Court, Willesden Green, was given a 16 week jail sentence suspended for 18 months after admitting racially and religiously aggravated behaviour.