A disabled student says he has been subjected to a catalogue of abusive and aggressive treatment at the hands of local bus drivers.

Alexander Leek (20), who has cerebral palsy, said on several occasions he has been met with “hostility” from First Bus drivers for simply asking them to lower a ramp so he can get on with his wheelchair.

Alexander, who lives in Craigshill, says he now feels anxious about using bus services and has heard nothing back from First Bus, despite contacting them several times with his complaints.

This week the company said it was “disappointed” to hear about Alexander’s experiences and had launched an investigation.

Alexander, who is studying business management at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “I have been using the First Bus company in Livingston for three years now with the aid of my carer for many of my journeys.

“However, on several occasions I have encountered drivers that display a negative and often hostile behaviour towards both my carer and I for simply requesting the ramp to be made available on the bus for the sake of easy access.

“During these incidents, drivers have become confrontational and often times abusive as many of them believe that my carer should take full responsibility for getting me on the bus, without the aid of a ramp, despite First Bus company policy stating that drivers’ customer service training covers aiding disabled passengers, in this case a wheelchair user, by making the on-board ramp available upon request.

“A recent incident of this nature occurred in January whereby my carer and I were waiting to get a bus from Tay Walk in Craigshill to Bathgate.

“When the bus arrived, I asked the driver politely if he could make the ramp available to me to board the bus. The driver replied in a hostile tone, complaining that the bus was close enough to the kerb to allow my carer to get my wheelchair onto the bus without the aid of the ramp.

“Despite the driver’s reply I politely asked again for the driver to make the ramp available to me. The driver then became incredibly aggressive as he got out of his cabin and off the bus, he came towards me and tried to grab the handle of my wheelchair, I assume to get me on the bus himself, without the aid of the ramp, without my consent.

“As he approached me in this aggressive manner, I moved back and re-iterated my original request for the ramp.

“He then turned and went to pull the ramp out, in the process he slammed the ramp violently against the pavement and began to mumble to himself loudly.

“This is just a recent example of an incident as I have had this issue with driver attitudes in the past and have made many complaints to First Bus customer services in relation to this type of attitude and confrontational behaviour in the past.”

Alexander continued: “Due to the reccurring and frequent nature of these incidents, I have begun to feel anxious and intimidated to use First company’s bus services as I no longer feel safe or comfortable due to the potential threat of negative and often times hostile attitudes and behaviours that many drivers seem to take towards disabled passengers such as myself.

A spokesperson for First Scotland East said the company took its responsibility as a provider of accessible transport “incredibly seriously”.

She continued: “In the West Lothian area a number of transition kerbs are in place at bus stops, meaning they’ve been raised to meet the height of the bus platform, resulting in cases where ramps are not necessarily needed. However we are incredibly disappointed to hear of this gentleman’s experience and are investigating what happened.

“We already work with Disability Action Alliance and a number of disability groups to understand how we can provide better services and make travel easier for all passengers.

“Our driver training programme has already improved bus travel for customers with visual impairments and customers who may be suffering from dementia and we’ve introduced ‘Better Journey Cards’, which discreetly allow customers to let drivers know if they need extra help or assistance on their journeys.

“We remain strongly committed to helping wheelchair and other disabled customers to the best of our ability, where these standards have fallen short we will act to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”