AN angry parent is suing his daughter’s school for the cost of self-defence classes as he claims she has been bullied by classmates.

The parent, who does not want to be named, has taken the unusual step of issuing a small claims court order against Thorns Community College as a way of equipping his daughter "with the necessary skills to protect herself".

Andy Cox, principal at Thorns in Quarry Bank, said the school has received the court notification and will be “acting on that in due course”.

Speaking to the News, the parent said after hearing his daughter had been bullied he took up the matter with the school’s head of inclusion.

After the issue escalated he went to Mr Cox, before progressing to the chairman of governors, Dennis Hodson.

But the parent claims his daughter has continued to be bullied on a daily basis so he enrolled her onto a self-defence class and attempted to reclaim the costs from the school, but he said his request was refused.

Now, with the support of the recently-founded Parents Against Bullying At Thorns (PABAT) group, the parent has turned to the courts to try and claim back the £57.35 cost of the classes – and £25 court costs.

The interim chairman of PABAT, an anonymous group of parents, said: “This is thought to be the first case of its kind anywhere in the United Kingdom where a parent has been forced to take such drastic action due to the inability of the school’s leadership to deal with a case of bullying.

“We have fully advised and supported the parent throughout his dealings with the school. If the case is successful, we will be encouraging other parents whose children are being bullied to take the same action.

“Hopefully this will force the college to address the bullying issue by a small minority of children who appear to act with impunity.”

Mr Cox responded: “The claims made by the parent behind PABAT stem from an issue concerning a pupil which was dealt with swiftly and appropriately by staff earlier this year.

“It is important we protect this pupil, along with all other pupils at the school, and it is for this reason we will not be going into further detail on this matter.”

PABAT recently provided the News with freedom of information (FOI) statistics from the school which indicated that it had to deal with 222 reported incidents in the last academic year, as well as 185 this academic year, including verbal abuse, physical assault against pupils, racist abuse and bullying.

The statistics also show the school has handed out 183 fixed term exclusions to pupils over the past two academic years, while during the same time period it has given five permanent exclusions, and the police were called 22 times to respond to various incidents.

However, Mr Cox said he “totally rejects” the picture that has been painted of the school by the recent media releases by PABAT.

He said: “We have a zero tolerance policy on all kinds of issues including bullying, verbal abuse and racism. Like many other schools we have incidents to deal with, which are quickly and properly handled by staff.

“Young people will always test boundaries and these figures reflect our determination to instil tough, simple and effective sanctions where boundaries are crossed.

“We work with the police on a regular basis on all kinds of class work, as well as to deal with any incidents which arise in school. Rest assured we will continue to work with parents and pupils when incidents arise to make sure we all put the safety and the needs of children at Thorns first.”