A GROUP of youths whose actions left a service bus blocking a busy Darlington road have been described as having a complete 'disregard for their own safety.'

On Sunday, a group of around eight teenagers brought an Arriva bus to a halt on Haughton Road after pushing the engine's emergency cut off switch and opening the rear engine cover.

The teenagers, who were pictured by a bystander, were alleged to have shouted abuse at the driver before making off from the scene towards the town centre at around 5pm.

One witness, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Northern Echo that he was left astounded by the teenagers' 'disregard' for safety and that the situation could have ended up in tears.

He said: "I had been on my way to the gym when I saw the bus with its hazard lights on.

"I saw that a group of kids, both boys and girls, had jumped off the bus to turn the emergency cut off button off and then ran to the back of the bus.

"There was this group of about seven or eight of them, it was not exactly nice for the driver or those people in cars behind.

"It showed the disregard the kids had for their safety. It was on Haughton Road and there was traffic behind, had the driver reversed god knows what would have happened with the kids.

He added: “It was a shock to witness, to see that they don’t bat an eyelid."

The latest incident comes just a fortnight after Arriva North East were forced to issue fresh warnings to unruly teenagers following a spate of bad behaviour on Darlington's buses.

The firm, which operates services across the region, said it was now passing on CCTV images of all reported incidents to the police as it launched a crackdown on anti-social behaviour.

At the time, a spokesperson for Arriva North East said: “The safety of our staff and passengers is of paramount importance to us and we take incidents of antisocial behaviour on board our buses very seriously.

"We have internal and external CCTV on all of our buses and provide CCTV images to the police in respect of every report.

"We are working closely with Darlington policing teams and Darlington Borough Council to help reduce and eliminate these occurrences.”