Nottingham: Driver Throws Teen Hannah Leigh off Bus at Known Rape Site - Even Though She Had Pass

A bus driver in Nottingham threw a teenage girl off an evening service a mile from the site where a woman was raped two years ago.

The driver told Hannah Leigh, 17, to leave the bus on Mansfield Road, three miles from her home, because her £225 bus pass had a fault.

The driver said he threw Leigh off the bus because he could not ascertain if the bus pass was valid.

Leigh's mother, Denise, explained that she had bought her daughter the bus pass after the rape in 2011. On that occasion, the victim had been turned away from a bus because she was 20p short of the fare.

Denise told the BBC: "We decided to pay £225 on a yearly bus pass, hoping that would give my daughter the security to catch a bus any time of day or night ... whether or not she'd got bus fare.

"The bus pass has a 0.03 chance of being faulty. Hannah's had two bus passes in the last six months. I'm a maths teacher. I know that the probability therefore is 0.0009, and that's pretty slim.

"She's either very unlucky, or I don't believe their figures; therefore I worry about their policy being adhered to in the first place."

Hannah was collected by her mother after the incident on a Saturday night last month.

Nottingham City Transport has apologised for the incident, saying the safety of its customers is extremely important to them.

A spokesman said: "We would like to start by offering our sincere apologies to Miss Leigh for the faulty card which led to her not being allowed to travel on one of our buses.

"We have a long-standing policy which states that under no circumstances should a vulnerable customer be left at the roadside, and it's a policy which is regularly communicated to our drivers during their on-going training.

"This was an isolated incident where one of our drivers evidently misjudged the situation, and we have reiterated with our staff the measures already in place to ensure vulnerable passengers receive support and assistance."

'Gross sense of injustice'

The 22-year-old woman raped two years ago was told to get off the last bus home. She was then dragged into Forest Recreation Ground and raped as she walked to meet her mother, who had come to pick her up.

Nineteen-year-old Joseph Moran was given an indeterminate sentence for the attack in September last year, but will be eligible for parole after six-and-a-half years.

At the trial, the victim said: "I remember having a gross sense of injustice that he (the driver) wouldn't let me on."

Trent Barton, which operated the bus, said the driver had not followed his training and would be disciplined.