PARENTS of a Darlington schoolgirl fear for her safety after council bosses refused to allow her on the school bus - because of her religion.

Victoria MacKenzie, 12, who lives in Lawrence Street, had free school transport to Carmel RC Technology College last year but this year her parents have been told the bus is full because priority is being given to Catholic children.

She will now have to get a public bus, which will leave her waiting outside the school gates for half an hour every evening.

Her father, Colin MacKenzie, said: "We chose to send her to Carmel because I went there and I know it is a good school. She is doing well there.

"But now we have been told she can't have a bus pass because the bus is full, as there are more Catholic children at Carmel this year and they have the priority over non-Catholics on the bus.

"She will have to wait for the bus outside the school, and then change buses in the town centre. After the Soham tragedy, we are really worried for her safety.

"I work as a market trader in the town centre and I see the kind of people who hang around there. I wouldn't want her waiting for a bus on her own - all her friends are Catholics so they got bus passes.

"We even offered to pay for her transport on the school bus but they said it was full and that was that."

A spokesman for Darlington Borough Council said: "We are one of the most generous local authorities in the country over our transport to school. We spend nearly £1m each year on school transport.

"These parents have made a personal choice to send their daughter to Carmel instead of their more local school, and we can't be expected to cater for all the parents who do that, otherwise we would be spending millions."

Last year, the council was bombarded with parents protesting after it threatened to cut free school transport from a two-mile radius to a three-mile radius.

Instead, an audit was carried out which showed the council could save money by cutting the number of bus places.

About 900 youngsters in Darlwould have been affected.

The Catholic community in Darlington had said it would be unfairly prejudiced against, as youngsters from the faith only have one secondary school in the town - Carmel College.

At the time, Geoff Pennington, the council's director of education, said the authority was one of only two in the country still operating the two-mile qualifier.