A severely autistic teenager sparked a frantic search after he failed to turn up at school – only to be found hours later slumped in the back of a bus that should have safely transported him there.
Jimmy Hudson, 13, who is selectively non-verbal, fell into a deep sleep after he was left on the sweltering bus – which had been parked outside the driver’s home at the end of his shift – for more than two-and-a-half hours.
His distraught mother Tracy, 45, from Westcliff in Essex, has now lashed out at school transport firm Vecteo, owned by Southend-on-Sea City Council, for their ‘negligence’ and said an apology was not enough.
‘A sorry doesn’t cut it if my son was lying in a morgue,’ she told MailOnline, adding Jimmy was physically unharmed but has been left emotionally traumatised by the distressing incident last Monday.
Recalling the events of that morning, Tracy said she had escorted Jimmy – the first of 13 children picked up each day – onto the Vecteo bus as it made its way towards St Nicholas School in Southend.
Aside from the bus driver, the vehicles always carry two personal assistants (PA) to help the youngsters.
Tracy believed all was well, but around 10am she received a call from the school informing her Jimmy had never arrived.
‘What is supposed to happen is that the children are led off the bus by the PAs and taken to a little alleyway that runs down the side of our school. It’s completely safe and there’s CCTV.
Severely autistic teenager Jimmy Hudson, 13, sparked a frantic search after he failed to turn up at school – only to be found hours later slumped in the back of a bus that should have safely transported him there
His distraught mother Tracy, 45, from Westcliff in Essex, has now lashed out at school transport firm Vecteo, owned by Southend Council, for their ‘negligence’ and said an apology was not enough
Jimmy, who is selectively non-verbal, fell into a deep sleep after he was left on the sweltering bus – which had been parked outside the driver’s home at the end of his shift – for more than two-and-a-half hours
‘The teachers stand a bit further down in that alleyway waiting for the children to arrive.
‘But hours after Jimmy left home, the school rang me to ask where he was because they could not find him.
‘My first instinct was that something was not right.’
At first, the school believed the teenager might be hiding somewhere on the premises and told Tracy they would conduct a thorough search.
When they failed to find Jimmy, staff looked through security footage, but could not see him entering the school grounds.
By this point, Tracy had made her way over to the school, which had also now involved Essex Police.
Vecteo was contacted several times, but according to Tracy she and the school were repeatedly assured by bosses that Jimmy had ‘definitely’ left the bus.
‘There must have been about four calls. Every time they said he definitely got off the bus, we saw him leaving.
Tracy said she was shocked to receive a call from St Nicholas School informing her that Jimmy had not turned up – even though she had helped him onto the bus that morning
Tracy said her son had been emotionally traumatised by the distressing incident last Monday
‘Then one of the PAs changed their story and said they thought he did leave, but they were not quite sure.
‘My son is not a flight and fight child. He’s not one to escape and doesn’t cope in the outside world. He is riddled with anxiety and sensory process and is selective mute, along with his autism.
‘The headmistress and me knew this was not him, it was so out of character.
‘There were only two solutions – he was still on that bus or somebody had taken him.’
The bus driver was by now asleep at home, but the police officer insisted that Vecteo contact him to search the vehicle.
Outside temperatures that day in Southend were around 23C, but the internal temperature of the locked vehicle would have been significantly higher.
‘The driver told me after that when he went back onto the bus, he could see a black coat at the back of the vehicle. He looked down and all he could see was a pair of legs.
‘The driver then said four times to Jimmy, “you need to wake up” and every time he got louder, but there was still no response.
Vecteo assured Tracy several times that Jimmy had ‘definitely’ left the bus – but in reality he was locked inside the vehicle for more than two hours in sweltering conditions
‘He told me that he panicked, that he’d never felt fear like it because Jimmy didn’t respond – and he didn’t know what he was going to see underneath that coat.’
Fortunately, the teenager did not suffer any physical repercussions, but Tracy said he is still processing the incident and has been emotionally harmed.
‘Just this afternoon he’s come home from school and said “they could have killed me, couldn’t they?” And I told him yes, they could.
‘You wouldn’t keep an animal in a car, so why on earth is it okay for a child to be locked on a bus?’
The shocking incident is the latest in a raft of complaints previously levelled at the transport company, which began in 2021 as a joint venture between London Hire Community Services and Southend-on-Sea City Council.
These complaints were the subject of a council motion as well as a petition in 2021 calling on the council to stop using Vecteo.
The petition attracted more than 1,000 signatures after service users alleged there were ‘serious safeguarding concerns’.
These included children and vulnerable adults being left on the side of the road, parents waiting hours for collection – and in one case, a child who was ‘blue on arrival home’ after they had an epileptic fit while on the bus.
MailOnline was also told by a Southend-On-Sea City councillor of another distressing incident in which Vecteo employees attempted to deliver a child to the wrong home address.
The bus driver told Tracy that he had to call out to Jimmy four times after the youngster fell asleep while sitting on the sweltering vehicle for two-and-a-half hours
The shocking incident is the latest in a raft of complaints previously levelled at Vecteo
Former Conservative councillor Tony Cox, who now serves as deputy mayor and leader of the Southend Reform UK Group for West Shoebury told MailOnline that while the service level provided by the firm has since improved, scores of residents had continued to flag ‘colossal safeguarding issues’ against Vecteo.
‘There’s been a catalogue of these incidents over the last four years and it’s just not acceptable.
‘I cannot for the life of me understand how something like this could have happened – and then to even tell the parent their child has been offloaded and dropped at school, when that’s not the truth.
‘I do think there should be a serious probe into what happened here.
‘It’s just a miracle nobody has been killed.’
Southend-on-Sea City Council and Vecteo have launched an internal probe into the incident
MailOnline understands that Vecteo and Southend-on-Sea City Council have launched an internal investigation into this latest incident.
A Vecteo spokesperson said: ‘The safety and wellbeing of all children in our care, particularly those who are more vulnerable, is always our highest priority.
‘We take this extremely seriously and are working with Southend-on-Sea City Council to urgently investigate these matters to ensure this cannot happen again.’
