A terrified four-year-old boy was left to wander the streets in tears after a school bus dropped him off at the wrong stop almost a mile from his home.

Louis Key found himself alone outside a pub and walked past a clinic for drug addicts in a tearful attempt to find his family.

A search party was arranged to comb the estate when Louis failed to get off the bus at the next stop, where his grandmother, Mavis Cull, 77, was waiting.

The incident took place just 10 miles from where Shannon Matthews, nine, disappeared on her way home from school.

Louis was travelling on a My Bus service recently set up in Bradford, West Yorks, where drivers are supposed to have a tightly controlled register of every child’s route.

But the youngster was allowed off the bus at a stop half a mile from where he should have been.

Louis was dropped outside a pub and walked up a hill past the drugs clinic. He then crossed a busy main road and found his way to his grandmother’s house.

When he found it empty he walked away and arrived, completely by chance, near the stop where his grandmother was coordinating the search.

His mother Helen, a 36-year-old tele-sales worker, says Louis has barely slept since the incident on Tuesday and clings to her every minute he can.

She said: “We are both so badly shaken by it. Louis can’t sleep, he was so shocked and upset by what happened.

“He is never getting on a bus like that again, I am paying someone now to pick him up every day.

“I was really worried about this service from the start, it seemed wrong to let him get on a bus unaccompanied and Louis didn’t want to get on the bus.

“They said no child would ever be let off the bus unless the driver had personally made sure someone was there to collect them.

“I am a working mum and a single mum and with all the assurances it seemed a lifeline.

“But the first time I let him travel on it, this happened.

Bus service co-ordinator Metro advertises the My Bus scheme as a pioneering new service and says that 150 such buses now operate across the region.

Drivers are, according to Metro, given precise details of each child’s travel patterns, including which stops they should be collected and dropped off.

Mrs Key added: “He is never getting on that bus again and I would urge other parents not to allow their children to travel on it.

“Just a few miles away from here Shannon Matthews disappeared on her way from school, I am just so grateful to have Louis back.

“We have had a letter of apology from the bus comapny and I am told we are getting another one.

“But our main concern is that this never happens again.

“As far as I’m concerned a four-year-old is still a baby. If the driver thought he had the right stop and there was no-one there to meet him then he should have kept him on the bus and phoned the school or me.

“You don’t just let a four-year-old get off a bus and walk off.

“The whole idea of paying for this service is so that our children get home safely.”

A spokesman for Metro said: “We would like to apologise to Mrs Key and her family for any concern that this incident may have caused.

“We have launched a formal inquiry into the incident to find out from the service’s operator how one of their drivers, who has undergone specific training, has allowed this to happen.

“We are also contacting all of the companies that operate yellow buses to ensure they emphasise to their drivers again just how important it is that they do not allow pupils aged under eight to get off buses anywhere apart from the designated stop and unless there is someone to meet them.”

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