A bus operator has warned children that an Oxford estate's evening and weekend services could be withdrawn if they continue a potentially fatal "game" of throwing stones at windows, writes Madeleine Pennell.

The warning came after a passenger suffered minor injuries when a bus was stoned in the Blackbird Leys terminal in Oxford last week.

It is believed that stones were catapulted at the vehicle, smashing a smashed. David Whitley, marketing manager of the bus operator, Stagecoach, said: "When the schools are on holiday, more windows are broken.

"To a ten year-old child, throwing a stone at a bus window is a game.

To our customers and our drivers, it is potentially lethal."

He also warned that services to the Blackbird Leys estate could be threatened if the violence continued.

He said: "Personally, I think it is disgusting that we cannot operate a bus service without fear of attack. If there is not a marked improvement in the behaviour of this tiny minority, we may have no option other than to simply withdraw all evening and night buses from the estate.

"We refuse to jeopardise the safety of our drivers and our customers."

Stagecoach warned that bus services in Oxford could be cut to maintain driver safety after a spate of violent crimes last October.

A bus driver was threatened by a man wielding a knife who tried to rob him outside The Original Swan pub in Between Towns Road, Cowley, Oxford. A few days before, four men, one carrying a four-inch knife, robbed the driver of a number one bus in Blackbird Leys.

The driver of a bus was robbed at knife-point at the Banbury Road roundabout.

And a CS gas canister was set off in another number one bus on the Cowley Road.