A teenage epilepsy sufferer with a disability travel card was ordered to get off a bus by the driver because he said her condition was a ‘p*** take’. Jess McGee,19, from Bath, Somerset, was on her usual route to her job at a supermarket when she showed the driver her legal bus pass.

As an epilepsy sufferer she is registered disabled and is entitled to free travel on public transport because she cannot drive safely. The driver on board the number 13 service asked to take a closer look and then demanded to know her disability.

When she explained her condition he told her it was a ‘p*** take’ and ordered her to pay or get off the bus. Jess wasn’t carrying any money but was saved by a kindly passenger who stepped in and paid her fare.

She said: ‘I felt very shocked and embarrassed.

‘I was so shocked at the time that I didn’t feel I could put up an argument.

‘People I have spoken to since have said all the things I should have said to him but at the time I just couldn’t.’ The incident happened when she tried to use her Diamond travel card from Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Mum Penny fumed: ‘I was just really outraged.

‘She is totally reliant on public transport because she hasn’t got the option to drive.

‘She has got a lot of barriers that have stopped her from doing things, but she is trying to live life to the full.

A spokesman for operator First said: ‘We will be getting in touch with Ms McGee as soon as possible to apologise for any distress she may have suffered.

‘As part of our training programme we train all of our drivers in disability awareness and expect all our staff to recognise and respond to the range of different needs that our customers may have, this includes hidden disabilities such as epilepsy.

‘However, we will be taking further steps to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.’

Source: Daily Mail  

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