Youths on the Blackbird Leys estate in Oxford fired an airgun at a bus driver.

The unnamed driver on Stagecoach's No. 1 Blackbird Leys route was struck on the chin by a plastic pellet. He escaped without serious injury and continued driving without medical treatment.

The attack is understood to have been carried out by three teenagers in Pegasus Road as the bus passed the junction with Knights Road.

The driver bus told bus company control room staff the culprits were aged about 14. The one who fired the airgun was wearing a baseball cap and light-coloured trousers.

Police took a statement from the driver two hours after the incident, which happened at about 12.50pm on May25.

Stagecoach marketing assistant Adam Rideout said: "The safety of our drivers and passengers is what we are most worried about.

"We have temporarily pulled out of Blackbird Leys after previous incidents of this sort."

Mr Rideout said the No. 1 service was being maintained.

New wardens with tough powers to clamp down on vandalism and nuisance along Oxfordshire's bus routes are set to start work later this summer.

Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire County Council have successful bid to employ eight community support officers. The civilian officers will have the power to detain people for half an hour.

Last November, passenger Raymond Cantwell, of Sorrell Road, Oxford, was hit by a rock thrown through the window of an Oxford Bus Company vehicle in Pegasus Road.

In January, the company's commercial manager, Phil Clark, said there had been eight incidents in a six-week period and he threatened to take whatever steps were necessary to protect staff and the public, including cutting services.

In February, a driver was injured when a piece of concrete was thrown through the open doors of a bus in Barton.

A woman passenger was left shaken in April when a large candle was thrown through a window of Stagecoach's No. 1 service in Blackbird Leys.