A SINGLE mother of three was asked to get off a bus by the driver - because he was annoyed by her child's crying.

Sian Whelpton said she was left upset and embarrassed following the incident on a Glyn Williams bus from Newport to the Ty Sign estate in Risca.

The 28-year-old mother was returning to her home in Elm Drive with her three children, eight-year-old Jay and her two-year-old twins Kai and Natalya, after going food shopping in Newport city centre.

She said: "My son, Kai, was crying and I couldn't do anything about it. "The driver then stopped the bus just before my stop on Ty Sign, and said, 'I have had a gutsful of your kid'.

"I said, 'Excuse me?' and he replied, 'He hasn't stopped crying from Newport to Risca'.

"I was so embarrassed that the driver spoke to me like that in front of other passengers."

The driver then asked if Ms Whelpton would leave the bus with her children and six bags of shopping.

She added: "I got off the bus, but afterwards I was fuming to the point where I was shaking.

"My son was crying a lot, but I think the driver wouldn't have spoken to me like that if I'd had a man with me.

"Now I feel I have to pay for babysitters just to go shopping in Newport because I don't want to risk being asked to leave the bus."

Ian Macdonald, commercial manager for Glyn Williams, said the driver had asked the mother politely to keep her child quiet before saying he had had a "gutsful" of the noise.

He said: "We carry a lot of people - up to 6,000 people a day. We have to look at the comfort and safety of everybody on the bus.

"One person doesn't matter to the safety of 20 to 30 others on the bus." He added: "If a child is screaming and screaming on the bus then you can't just leave it because the driver has to concentrate and hear bells and other traffic.

"We have a legal duty to ensure anyone whose behaviour may cause a problem, offence, discomfort or anything like that is obliged to leave the bus."