A bus driver refused to let an asylum seeker on his bus, and then wouldn’t let another passenger pay their fare for them, before swearing abusively, it has been claimed. The other passenger has spoken to Bristol Live about the incident, which is believed to have been the first in a series of issues faced by asylum seekers being made to stay in a remote hotel near Bristol Airport.
The incidents led yesterday to the leader of an arts charity working at the hotel with more than 100 people seeking asylum in this country to complain publicly for the first time, telling Bristol Live that drivers on the Falcon bus service, which runs along the A38 between Weston-super-Mare and Bristol, were discriminating against the residents of the hotel.
Stagecoach South West, which runs the Falcon service, denied there was an issue, and said they had ‘found no evidence’ of the claims, and in fact were investigating reports of their drivers being abused.
Read more: Bus bosses deny racism allegations from asylum seekers
Now, as Bristol Live revealed the issue on Monday, the arts organisation that has been supporting the residents of the Holiday Inn Bristol Airport launched a fundraiser to try to help the people living there. And a local resident has told how he witnessed first hand the issue on the Falcon bus.
The man, who did not wish to be publicly named, told Bristol Live he gets the Falcon bus service in to Bristol from the Langford area of north Somerset around twice a month, on average. In April and May this year, the Home Office began to house people who had arrived in the UK and were seeking asylum, in the Holiday Inn Bristol Airport.
The man said it was back in May that the first incident happened. “I got on the bus at the stop before the one nearest to the Holiday Inn with a friend, and we had just sat down when it stopped at the next stop and a man got on,” said the local resident.
“There was a bit of an issue, and this guy was having terrible trouble buying his ticket. He was offering a card but it wasn’t working, and I think I said to my friend we should go and help and offer to buy his ticket for him,” he added.
“We went down to the front and it was a pretty brief conversation. The driver just simply refused to let us pay for the ticket for the man, and then he ordered him to get off the bus. I think my friend asked why we couldn’t just pay for the man’s ticket, and the bus driver said: ‘Because they’ve been taking the p***’, meaning the men who are living at the hotel.
“I remember thinking this was not right. This angered me, and I tweeted something to Stagecoach and emailed them to raise it with them. But at the time, I didn’t register it as part of a pattern, to me it was a one-off,” he added.
The local resident later joined a WhatsApp group of people living in the area who wanted to help and support the people being sent to live at the hotel by the Home Office, set up by the leader of a North Somerset arts charity Trigger, which went into the hotel over the summer to work on an arts project with the men there.
Yesterday, Bristol Live reported how Trigger’s leader Angie Baul said she and her team ended up doing far more than just some art work with the men. She said the men, who arrived in the UK seeking asylum from a range of mainly war-torn or crisis-torn countries in East Africa and the Middle East, were put to live in a hotel near Bristol Airport but with only £8.25 a week to live on, and the location miles from anywhere - with the only public transport being the Falcon bus service.
The man on the bus in May said he noticed other issues. “Several other times over the summer whenever I was on the bus, I would get on at the stop before the hotel stop and watch as the bus driver just drove straight past the men at the bus stop,” he said. “They were flagging down the bus in exactly the same way I had done just down the road, but while the driver stopped for me, he wouldn’t stop for them. I realised there was more of a problem here,” he added.
On another occasion, the police were called to the bus because one man - who had the money in cash to pay for his ticket - was not allowed on the bus, but refused to get off. Police arrived and said the driver was within his rights to refuse to let the man on the bus, and in a lengthy statement published by Bristol Live yesterday, admitted that they should have logged what happened as a ‘hate incident’ earlier than they did.
Stagecoach South West have said they take the allegations seriously, but after investigating them have ‘found no evidence’ to back any of them up. In fact, the bus company said it is currently looking into reports of their staff being abused.
The local resident who witnessed the first incident said that it has not been easy for the people who have been based at the Holiday Inn, and the largely rural local community living nearby in villages and hamlets like Redhill, Langford, Lye Cross and Wrington had reacted in a variety of ways to the arrival.
“There’s a good number of local residents who see these people and are actively trying to help them - they’ve just been left there and need support . The majority of people who live around here are ambivalent, but unfortunately there’s people who are not happy these people are living here at all. That’s in stark contrast with the way they treated and reacted with the Ukrainian refugees when they came. It feels like there’s a racial element to the difference,” he added.
The group of local residents who stepped forward to help the men at the hotel joined a WhatsApp group and offer practical support - for example, if a local resident is driving into Bristol, they will offer to give a lift to someone at the hotel.
Angie Baul at Trigger has set up a fundraising page to help collect money for practical things like pay the petrol for that, and other things.
Within a day or so, around £1,500 has been raised. “These men are cut off from shops, people, and asylum seeker services,” said Angie. “North Somerset Council have never hosted asylum seekers or refugees and there are no established support networks in the county, so the asylum seekers rely solely on agents based in Bristol for their legal, social, mental and physical needs.
“As local residents to the Mendips, we’ve been supporting these men placed at the Holiday Inn for the past five months. We’ve set up a WhatsApp group with other local residents to gather donations of clothes, shows, coats, phones, personal care items. Regular football games have been set up, and 45 bikes have been donated.
“As many of us are commuters, we’ve also been offering lifts in and out of town. Lifts are eagerly taken up by the Holiday Inn residents as transport is an issue,” she added.
UPDATE - Stagecoach South West's managing director issued the following statement on Wednesday morning, October 5.
Mike Watson, Managing Director of Stagecoach South West, said: "We have a strong commitment as a company to championing diversity, inclusion and equality and helping people right across our community.
"Diversity and inclusion are a priority for Stagecoach, which has set stretching targets to increase the number of employees identifying as being from ethnic group backgrounds to 25% by 2026. As part of these commitments, Stagecoach has six thriving employee networks across the business, which includes a dedicated multi-cultural support group.
"We are also proud to be working closely with local authorities in many parts of the country to support refugees in the UK with their bus travel to help them be an active part of their local communities. This includes discussions with North Somerset Council on how we can work together to make travel easier for refugees living locally.
"We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind or unacceptable behaviour, whether that involves an employee or any customer seeking to use our services. In the past 24 hours, we have been made aware of new detailed complaints regarding the alleged behaviour of some employees operating Falcon services serving Cowslip Green near Bristol.
"We can confirm we have launched an urgent investigation into the specific circumstances involved. We will not hesitate to take any necessary disciplinary action where our values and people's right to equal access to our services have not been upheld.
"In the meantime, we have been in close contact with the liaison officer responsible for the hotel at Cowslip Green and put in place additional monitoring of boarding and ticketing on services calling at the bus stop. Since these measures have been put in place, we have not been made aware of any problems, however we will continue to monitor the situation closely."
Read next
- Roy Hackett funeral: Tears, laughter and tributes as the legend of Bristol is laid to rest
- Jesus joins the Bristol Bus Boycott to replace Colston stained glass window
Follow the latest updates on this story and others like it here.
