A British couple is claiming that they were accused of anti-Muslim racism and thrown off of a bus for singing a song about a cartoon pig to their autistic baby daughter.
Nick Barnfield and Sara Cleaves said they were singing the Peppa Pig theme song and imitating the character in an effort to calm their crying 15-month-old while returning from a hospital visit in Sheffield to their home in South Yorkshire earlier this month.
According to the couple, a woman then complained to the driver that their behavior was clearly a racist reference to the fact that Muslims cannot eat pork.
“She was saying, ‘You’re irresponsible parents teaching your child to be racist. You shouldn’t be singing that to your daughter, it’s a song about pigs and it’s racist,’” Barnfield said.
Barnfield said the driver then ordered them to leave the bus, even though they were still two miles away from home. When the family tried to get onto another bus, he said, the driver immediately told them to leave.
“The driver from the other bus had obviously radioed out to other buses and told them not to let us on,” he said.
Barnfield said it took the family more than two hours to walk home.
Footage of the incident depicts a woman talking to the couple and the driver, as well as the couple leaving the bus.
A spokesperson for the bus company, First, said that the driver has denied that racism accusations were a factor in the incident. The company is still investigating.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter at National Review Online.