AN AUTISTIC boy had to be rescued after bad behaviour by others led to a bus driver ordering school pupils off a bus.

The driver of the 827 First Bus service, which goes between Westcliff High School and Canvey, ordered pupils from St Thomas More and Westcliff schools to leave the bus on Kenneth Road in Benfleet.

And the behaviour has got so bad the bus company is considering whether to continue running school services.

Trevor Wood, who lives on Canvey, said his 11-year-old son, who lives with autism, was left by the road as a result of other students misbehaving, and became distressed because he didn’t know where he was.

Mr Wood managed to locate his son thanks to a tracking app on his phone after he was left by the bus driver shortly after 4.30pm on Wednesday.

Mr Wood said: “It’s an unbelievable action on the driver’s behalf, ordering most of the schoolchildren off the bus when a few are causing trouble.

“My son rang me incredibly distressed, he had no idea where he was, and had done nothing wrong.

“If it wasn’t for the tracker app on his phone, I wouldn’t have known where he was and it would have been very difficult to find.

“I can appreciate the driver having to deal with misbehaviour and taking appropriate actions, but to order off innocent bystanders when they may not know where they are is completely unacceptable.”

Dan Worley, Operations Manager at First Hadleigh, has called on the schools to crack down on student behaviour.

He said: “Earlier on in the journey the pupils were asked by the driver and one of our supervisors to behave but they refused.

“This type of action is not what I would expect any our drivers to do under any circumstances, as we have an obligation to keep all passengers safe whilst travelling from A to B on our services.

“However, we need this bad behaviour to stop.

“On a regular basis we are experiencing students swinging from the interior handrails, playing football upstairs on the top deck, and being aggressive towards each other.

“All these incidents have been reported to the schools.

“If this activity continues, I will need to seriously consider the future of serving the schools unless there is supervision provided by each establishment.

“Other passengers should not have to endure this activity when using the bus to travel.”

The Echo approached Westcliff High School for Boys and St Thomas More School for comment, but they did not respond.