A Wiltshire mother has slammed Stagecoach after a “rude” bus driver allegedly swore at her in an altercation over lost property.

Tameka Whyte, who lives in Calne, had been on the Stagecoach bus home from Chippenham with her daughter, at around 6pm on Friday, September 29.

The 27-year-old noticed another woman leave her bag on the bus and attempted to hand it into the driver.

But she claims the driver responded by “shrugging” and replying: “I don’t give a ****.”

“I literally just stopped because I couldn’t believe it”, added the mother of two.

“There could’ve been anything in that bag, there could’ve been a bomb for all he knew, so the driver should care and should take lost property seriously.”

Ms Whyte says she decided to take the bag home and try and find the rightful owner, as she had been unable to hand it in.

She added she intended to take it to Calne Police Station before falling ill with Covid-19.

By this time police had launched a CCTV appeal to identify Ms Whyte and find the bag, believing it was stolen.

The Calne resident contacted officers on 101 to report the bag missing.

Police confirmed that, after identifying Ms Whyte, no further action would be taken in connection to the incident.

But she believes the ordeal could’ve been avoided if she was able to hand the bag in.

She added: “The whole thing could’ve been prevented, even if the driver wasn’t allowed to take the bag he shouldn’t have sworn at me.

“I don’t have faith in them if I left something on the bus now.”

Stagecoach has since apologised to Ms Whyte following a formal complaint but insisted that, after reviewing CCTV, they were confident the correct procedure was followed.

Rachel Geliamassi, the managing director of Stagecoach West, said: “Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologise to Ms Whyte for any distress caused by this incident. 

“We appreciate her vigilance and the fact she notified our driver that a bag had been left on the bus. 

“Having since checked CCTV and interviewed the driver in question, we are confident procedure was followed.”

 Stagecoach also told this paper it had cooperated fully with Wiltshire Police during their investigation.

Ms Geliamassi added: “We co-operated fully with Wiltshire Police in providing them with detailed information and CCTV footage, however, we had no involvement in the posting of images of Ms Whyte on the Police's social media channels so cannot comment on this aspect of the complaint.”