A BUS passenger has told how the driver had to slam the brakes on to avoid hitting a gang of abusive children playing chicken in its path.

Two of the brazen group - aged around 12 or 13 - yesterday admitted to their involvement and tried to defend their actions as “having fun”.

The war of words between the youngsters and adults on the Colchester Community/Crime Group Facebook page came after the bus passenger Tanesha Brett reported the near-miss incident on the site.

The mum said her pram with five week-old daughter Faye in was sent flying forwards on the bus after its driver had to brake suddenly.

The youths, on bikes, then starting mouthing abuse at the First bus driver after Monday’s incident on the number 64 at the Hythe, Colchester.

Tanesha, 21, from Greenstead, said: “We were travelling to town with our baby. We got by Tesco and we saw the kids ahead.

“They were on bikes and started out of the way then started to ride right in the middle of the road and then rode over both sides of the road.

“When the bus came towards them they decided to speed up towards the bus and the driver had to put the brakes on as soon as they got really close.

“He had to slam on the brakes really hard.”

Tanesha was sitting at the front of the bus in the buggy area.

“My baby could have been seriously injured from just that alone.

“Not to mention the driver could have killed one of those kids.”

Tanesha said the four children then started to shout abuse at the driver and he yelled back for them to cycle out of the vehicle’s way.

The jolt also left her baby shaken, she said.

After speaking of her shock of the incident, two boys identified themselves as being involved.

The Gazette has not named them as they are understood to be just 12 or 13.

Despite anger vented at them by several people, one cockily wrote on the page: “So there is people getting killed and robbed and yous are moaning about people on bikes.”

He added: “We are trying to have fun on our bikes, at least we’re not going round drug dealing or stabbing people.”

Steve Hartman, operations manager at First Colchester added: “From time to time we do experience incidents of anti-social behaviour, when groups of young people actively try to disrupt our bus services which is not only annoying for our driving staff and travelling passengers, but can have dangerous consequences if a bus is moving.

“The incident that happened was a very minor one and did not incur any injuries to passengers on the bus or to the young people on the bikes playing in the road, it was solely a verbal exchange of words between the bus driver and the group of young people at the scene.”