‘Bullied’ pupil sues private school after suicide attempt

A TEENAGER is suing one of Scotland’s top private schools for £50,000, claiming she was bullied to the brink of suicide.

The former pupil claims Strathallan School in Perthshire failed to adequately protect her from physical and cyberbullying while she was a boarder there.

The 18-year-old said the bullying became so bad that it led to her repeatedly self-harming and eventually making a suicide bid.

She alleges a lack of action by the school management caused her ‘anxiety and depression’ and her parents removed her from the school over fears for her safety. The teenager’s legal action at Perth Sheriff Court states that the bullying culminated in another pupil urinating in her sink and using the girl’s towel to mop it up.

The school accepts the incident occurred and that the girl was the subject of bullying by her peers, but says the pupil responsible was immediately suspended. It strongly denies a lack of care and is robustly defending the action.

It alleges the girl’s mental health deteriorated when her wealthy parents moved to Portugal and signed her care over to another family member. The school has told the court the girl felt unduly pressured by her father to achieve good grades.

Strathallan also claims the cyber-bullying on WhatsApp happened after the girl posted sexually explicit pictures of herself to a boy and they were seen by other pupils.

The girl, whose parents live in a £1.4 million home in England, left the £33,000-a-year school in 2015 and moved to another fee-paying school.

Her legal action states: ‘She is entitled to aggravated damages because the school’s failure to notify her parents of her attempted suicide and continuing selfharming was repugnant to human decency.

‘She was continually emotionally derided, insulted and victimised – which led directly to her self-harming. The defenders did nothing to prevent persistent verbal and cyber attacks.’

The school says the girl asked for her parents not to be told about her selfharming and that none of her actions at school amounted to a suicide attempt. Although she had sent the sexually explicit image of herself, she was not disciplined, ‘despite the content of the image’.

The case will be heard at a later date.