A GWENT schoolboy was ordered off a bus and walked nearly three miles home after the driver claimed he started a fight.

Huw Kinghan, 11, (pictured with mother Sue) a pupil at St Joseph's High School, Newport, was told he had to get off following a fight, and was dropped off at the bus stop near Mayfair Stores in Undy.

He was halfway through the five-mile walk home when his mum Sue picked him up. She told the Argus: "There is no footpath and it's a busy road from Caldicot to Magor with lorries and cars going by. He could have been knocked down and killed."

But Huw Francis, company secretary of Swansea-based 2 Travel Coaches, says Huw was identified as one of the boys involved in a fight on the bus.

Mr Francis said the driver saw Huw hitting a younger boy and stopped the fight - but a pencil case was then thrown from inside the bus at his windscreen as he drove on. Mr Francis said: "The driver has to think about the other children on the bus. He didn't drop him in the country but took him to a town."

He added: "We have written to the school about the incident, asking if the local police force, the head teacher and the child can sit down and discuss the matter." Mr Francis added that the driver offered Huw use of a mobile to call his parents - but it was refused.

Mrs Kinghan, of Estuary View, Caldicot, said she was told by her son Jack, 13, when he got home that Huw had been ordered off the school bus.

She said: "The driver thought my son started the fight and threw him off. But if he had waited and asked the other passengers they would have put him right."

Mary Williams, assistant head at St Joseph's High School, said: "While we don't condone pupils being naughty on the bus we are not happy with the bus company that they put the child off to walk home."