A mum says a bus driver left children stranded outside a school - and their only crime was carrying bags of chips.

Lisa Redfern, 46, said a Stagecoach driver refused to take the three youngsters on the single-decker 2a bus from Homewood School in Tenterden to Ashford yesterday and turned them away because they had chips.

The mum was waiting to pick up her son Scott, 14 and his friend Jemma, 16, around 4.45pm, when she witnessed the two girls and a boy, thought to be 15 years old, being ejected from the bus.

She fumed: "Parents pay over £300 a year for bus passes from Ashford to Homewood and the driver should be ashamed for not letting the children on.

"What if it had been cold and dark on a winter's night, would he have left the children stranded then?

"They were quiet kids and very polite and they even offered to put the chips in their school bags but the driver didn't want to know.

"I could not see them stranded in Tenterden for another hour, so I offered them a lift back to Ashford as they knew my son's friend Jemma."

Mum-of-three, Lisa, who drives a seven-seater Hyundai Sante Fe said: "It's not as if the children were rowdy and would have thrown the chips around. I'm sure he would have let them on the bus if they were carrying a can of drink, or a bag of sweets.

"I think he was just being really mean."

Stagecoach has been approached for a comment.