A CATHOLIC pupil faces a daily struggle to reach school after being refused a place on the school bus because her parents are Protestant.

Lauren Loan's parents have been left wondering how to get their daughter to and from their home in Perkinsville, near Pelton, to St Leonards RC Comprehensive in Durham because she does not qualify for a bus pass.

Although Lauren is a practising Catholic, her parents are not, so she does not meet the criteria.

Lauren, 11, attended one of the comprehensive's Catholic feeder schools, St Benet RC Primary in Ouston, after moving from another school where she was being bullied.

Shortly after the move she asked if she could become a Catholic, to which her mother Norma eventually agreed.

Although Norma is Church of England, she takes her daughter to mass every week. But the local education authority stipulates that to qualify for free transport to church schools at least one parent must be of the same faith.

Norma said: "I don't think there's many children who are different religions from their parents, but the council classes her as non-Catholic, so she isn't eligible for this pass.

"Now she just feels like she's completely different from everybody else. She just feels isolated and a loner."

The only way of completing the eight-mile journey by public transport is to catch two buses, which Norma does not want her to do on her own.

Norma cannot drive and so other family members try to fit the school run around their working day.

Two other pupils of St Leonard's RC Comprehensive, 12-year-old twins Stephen and Sarah Gregory, are also having to rely on a similar arrangement to get to school from Urpeth Grange, Ouston.

They have been refused a bus pass because neither the twins nor their parents are Catholic, although they attended a Catholic feeder school.

Their parents Carol and Paul say the children are too young to catch a bus into Chester-le-Street, then catch another public transport bus into Durham.

A spokesman for Durham County Council said parents were informed about eligibility for free transport when they expressed an interest in sending their child to a school.

He said: "There has to be some point where somebody qualifies and somebody else doesn't. That's what the admissions criteria is based upon."