VANDALS have attacked a mini-bus for disabled school kids three times in the past two months.

The Akcess bus, which takes disabled children from around West Swindon to Brimble Hill Primary School during term time, was parked outside Millbrook Primary School when it was targeted.

On three separate occasions vandals have punctured the tyres on the Mercedes bus – most recently this Sunday, when driver Darren Williams woke to find that his front two tyres had been slashed.

Darren, 32, who has been driving the Akcess van for the last two years, said: “It’s low and spineless to attack a disabled bus.

“It means I have to wait around for a colleague to get another bus – which means I’m late to pick up the children.”

The Freshbrook man said that as many as seven vehicles had been attacked by the vandals – including his father’s VW Passat estate car.

All of the vehicles that have had their tyres punctured were parked on Gainsborough Way outside a rear gate to Millbrook Primary School, Darren said.

The driver said that he had the permission of the school to park his bus outside the gates and, when he moved the bus onto a side road a note was posted on his window by a resident asking him not to park on the street.

“I think there is just somebody who doesn’t like us parking there [on Gainsborough Way].”

The attacks on the disabled bus have been reported to the police, Darren said.

“All they said was that there’s not much that they can do and to put CCTV cameras in.

“I’d like the attacks to stop. That’s why I’m bringing it to everybody’s attention.”

Allister Monaghan, transport manager at Akcess, hit out at the vandals: “It’s just an incredibly childish thing to do.

“We’re lucky that we have the facilities to replace the tyres. We have a company that does our maintenance and they have a stack of tyres at hand.

“But it has a massive knock on effect for us, trying to replace the vehicle [so we can] get our children to school.”

Akcess operate a fleet of around 170 accessible vehicles across Swindon, aimed at helping those with reduced mobility or access needs. The company is funded by Swindon Borough Council and Wiltshire and Gloucester county councils.

Allister said that attacks on the company’s busses were rare. “It doesn’t happen often, but we have had incidents where we have had vehicles targeted.”