A mum has spoken of her anger after her son with Down Syndrome was forgotten and left alone on a school bus and ended up in a busy car park while the driver was shopping.
The nine-year-old boy, known as Christopher, was put on the bus by his mum at 8.55am last week to go to school but then did not disembark and was left alone in that bus, the driver not realising there was a child on the bus.
The driver then went to Lidl shopping and the child was left in an unlocked Education Authority bus and managed to get off and walk through the car park to the shop where he was found by a concerned member of the public.
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His mum spoke to the Nolan Show about the ordeal and said her son "could have been killed" and said she is still waiting on answers from the Education Authority, who have confirmed the incident is being investigated.
"My son is Christopher and he is nine-years-old and on Wednesday there, the 21st, I got up as usual with him, got him ready for school. Then my husband he had text me then a message around about 9.30am that morning to give him a wee ring, I rang him and he said to me, 'Did you not put Christopher onto the bus this morning?'," said the mum, known on the Nolan Show as Maria - not her real name.
"I said, 'Yes I did, of course I did, why what's wrong'. He said the school had rang to say Christopher is not in school and he said ring the school there quick will you.
"So I tried to ring the school three/four times and couldn't get through, so panic set in."
She continued: "I was terrified, as a mother panic sets in , there's something wrong, what's going on, they are not answering their phones. So I jumped into the car and rushed over to the school and there were two teachers waiting on me at the school. This was about 9.40am. At this stage they said come into a room and I was very, very upset at what was going on, where my child was.
"They said could you sit down there a minute and I was by myself and I said no I am not going to sit down, what has happened, where is my child and they brought my child into the room then.
"They said at this stage they don't know where he had got to or how he had got there."
The mum said she was told the school had to go and look at the cameras, there were cameras placed all round the school. She then said the principal came in and said, 'He has been left on the bus'.
The mum said she was "absolutely furious".
"He wasn't taken off the bus by the helper and the bus driver never noticed that my child was still left sitting on the bus," she said.
"Well the bus driver went over into Lidl to do his shopping. How he never noticed my child was still on the bus it beyond me."
The mother then told the Nolan Show her son was left alone on the bus while the bus driver was in Lidl shopping, it is claimed he then took his seatbelt off and got off the bus, which was unlocked, and ran around a busy car park.
"He then made his way over into the store [Lidl] where a kind lady got him," she said.
"He was trying to buy a tin of Pepsi from what I hear. Stephen I was beyond furious and so upset, I haven't slept with nightmares of what could have happened to him," she told the presenter.
"People turn round and say to me, put that thought out of your head, it didn't happen. That's alright them saying that, it's not their child. There are four lanes on the motorway a few yards away and over the other side of the road there's Smyths Toy Shore and if he had spotted that he would have made his way down there.
"My child could easily have been killed."
She said she called the Education Authority and claims she was told there is a full investigation ongoing. She claimed incidents of a similar nature have happened before and questioned why lessons had not been learnt.
"I am still very angry because the way I see it is they said before this should never happen again in their statements with these other children and it has been allowed to happen again," she said.
"I am not taking away from these other families that their child has been left on a bus for longer periods. My child was left on an unlocked bus, to be able to get off and run over a busy car park where cars are reversing, coming up from that main motorway and it is so so busy in the mornings. It is unbelievable, I can not get it out of my head."
The mum said she is not getting answers from the Education Authority and doesn't feel safe putting her son on the bus but wants to keep him in his routine as that is important for his wellbeing.
Assistant Director of Transport for the Education Authority, Eve Bremner, told the Nolan Show: "Firstly I want to start by again offering a sincere and unreserved apology to Christopher and his family for what has happened. This was completely and utterly unacceptable so we are upset and really disappointed this has happened particularly given the efforts we have gone to ensure that clear procedures are followed. Obviously it is a live investigation at the moment and I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardise that but as a general point what I would say is we require drivers and escorts to complete a simple, mandatory check of their vehicle at the end of each journey and we have gone to great lengths to re-enforce, train and communicate this procedural requirement to try and prevent this type of incident from happening."
She added that when they provide services to special schools they do provide an escort for the bus and there is a clear procedure in place for drivers and escorts to walk to the back of the bus and check every seat.
When asked if the carer on the bus had to escort the children by hand to school, she said: "It is a team work approach Stephen, both between the driver and the escort and the school. Obviously our buses carry large amounts of pupils to school and therefore we would have arrangements in place whereby schools would greet and meet pupils to assist them and bring them into the school in order that we don't leave vehicle unattended. But certainly in terms of checking the bus and ensuring a child has disembarked, that is very clearly the responsibility of the driver and the escort."
When asked how she felt about the incident, she said: "I am devastated for that family because we are genuinely sorry this incident has happened given all the efforts we have gone to. We have a dedicated team who work really hard to deliver a complex and demanding service with over 33m user journeys each school year and they have done that throughout the covid pandemic. I know they will share my disappointment that this is the way in which our service is represented as it does a disservice to the great work they are doing. I hope I can reassure parents that we are and will continue to do all we can to reduce this risk and will not be complacent and I hope the testimony of this pupil's mum will actually serve as a further reminder to our team of how critical it is that they complete that simple, mandatory check each and every time."
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