A furious mum has told how her "frightened" 10-year-old daughter was left in the "dark and cold" after a bus driver wouldn't allow her on board due to a faulty ticket machine.
Daiva Paskeviciene, from Edinburgh,said that her daughter, a pupil at Tollcross Primary School, was not allowed on the bus because her pass did not work, and claimed it was a fault with the machine.
The first alleged incident happened on January 6 when the schools had just gone back after Christmas break, reported EdinburghLive.
Ms Paskeviciene said she received a call from her terrified daughter after she was left alone waiting in the cold for 40 minutes for another bus home.
The 10-year-old is claimed to have presented her junior ridacard, that had been topped up that morning, to the machine on the bus.
The driver told her it wasn't working so she could not get on and would have to leave the bus.
Ms Paskeviciene told EdinburghLive: "My daughter is in P6 at Tollcross and is 10-years-old, it happened after Christmas when schools went back.
"Usually she gets the bus, on that day at around 3.30pm. She went to the bus with her bus card that I topped up that morning. The machine wasn't working so the driver told her she couldn't get on the bus. He then got angry and was shouting at her. She got really scared.
"The bus stop was at Lothian Road, she had to wait 40 minutes for the next one it got dark and very cold. She called me and eventually a stranger had to give her money to be able to get home. Next time I made sure she had spare change just in case.
"I couldn't believe a driver would act like that to a little girl then it happened again. She got a new bus card the free Young Scot one, it worked in the morning on the bus but again when she was trying to get on the 34 after school, she tapped her card and it didn't work.
"The driver said, 'your card doesn't work, you aren't coming on' my daughter called me crying, and is now afraid to catch the bus to school."
A spokesman for Lothian Buses said: "Lothian is committed to delivering safe, reliable public transport for all of our customers.
"We would always ask that our customers contact our customer services team if they have concerns regarding their travel experience and would encourage this customer to contact us directly with more information to allow us to investigate the matter."
