A TEENAGER left brain damaged in a hammer attack at his school yesterday relived the experience during a compensation hearing.

Henry Webster was 15 when his skull was fractured by a claw hammer at a Ridgeway School tennis Court in January 2007.

Thirteen teenagers and a man who did not attend the school have since been convicted for their parts in the attack.

Mr Webster, now 18, appeared at London’s High Court as part of his seven figure claim for compensation from the Wroughton school, which his legal team said was negligent in failing to maintain proper discipline and deal with racial tension.

The teenager’s younger brother Joseph, his mother Elizabeth and his stepfather Roger Durnford are also seeking compensation for the trauma of watching the schoolboy fight for his life.

However, the school’s QC, Ronald Walker, has pointed out the attack occurred after school hours and argued that short of stopping and searching every visitor nothing could have been done to prevent the attack.

Robert Glancy QC, acting for the family, claimed the attack was a clearly foreseeable result of the school’s failure to enforce discipline, take steps to ensure pupil safety and match up to its race relations duties.

He said there had been “a failure to appreciate or heed” the school’s “serious problem” with racial abuse and intimidation – particularly by the “radicalised and hostile” “Asian Invasion” group, which was responsible for the attack.

He told Mr Justice Nicol in April 2003 a pupil was stabbed through his or her coat with a knife by an intruder on the school grounds and, in September the same year, someone tried to abduct a girl pupil.

Mr Glancy said an increasing number of Asian pupils introduced a new series of problems for the school.

“This became an even greater problem after 2005 and the problems were no doubt exacerbated by the repercussions of the London bombings in July 2005,” Mr Glancy claimed.

He said a witness would provide evidence of a riot between white and Asian youths on the playing fields in 2006.

A trainee teacher would tell the court she found a surprising lack of respect for the teachers and a lack of discipline, Mr Glancy said. He said the female teacher’s view was that Asian pupils were never disciplined and if they were they received lesser punishments than white pupils.

A male teacher would tell the court indiscipline was tolerated, he added.

Mr Webster, who spoke clearly while giving evidence, said Asian boys at the school did not integrate.

He said: “The school didn’t do anything to try and split them up but almost seemed to encourage them to stay together. They were given their own lunch area.

“I saw them abusing and intimidating white pupils. They would hang around in the corridors and would intimidate people by speaking their own language, pointing and laughing.

“They would shoulder barge people and generally just try and cause arguments and fights around the school.”

Mr Webster said there was uproar in the school after white boys were suspended for chasing Asians who had beaten up a younger Year 7 boy and gone unpunished.

He said: “Everyone knew that if there was an incident, there would be consequences for them but not the Asians... it always was the white boy who seemed to be suspended or punished and the Asian boy seemed to get away with it.”

Mr Webster said he had nothing to do with the Asian Invasion group until Year 11 when a boy barged into him for no reason.

He said he did get involved when one of his best friends was pushed around.

“He was quite a lot smaller than them and I was quite a lot bigger; there were five of them and one of him and they were pushing him so I thought I would stand up to them – not start a fight or anything, just stick up for my friend.”

On the day he was assaulted, he had punched one Asian boy, but “not very hard” as he felt threatened, he said.

Mr Webster said the tension died down until after the fifth lesson of the day, when he was told he was going to fight an Asian boy “one-on-one” on the tennis courts after school and he agreed.

“I didn’t want to fight one versus five.

“I didn’t want to fight. I just felt that I was kind of pushed into having a fight because the teacher hadn’t offered me any support and pushed me into a situation where I felt I had to look after myself and that seemed the only way I could look after myself.

“I was also under a lot of pressure from my friends and other pupils saying I should go to the tennis courts.”

Mr Webster said if he had known that adults would come to the courts and get involved, he would have told the school or the police.

Mr Walker said the hammer attack was carried out by a stranger and not a pupil, and was therefore carried out by a person who was not someone over whom the school had any control.

He dismissed accusations of “systematic negligence” as “wholly misconceived”.

He said: “The proposition that, by reason of its failure to deal adequately with the behaviour or discipline or racial tensions between its pupils, a school could be liable for an attack on one of its pupils by a person who is not even a pupil at the school... is unprecedented and far-fetched”.

He put it to Mr Webster that any racism in the school stemmed predominantly from white boys.

Mr Webster denied he had never heard any racist banter or heard any Asian referred to as a “Paki”.

Mr Walker said: “I suggest that it would be impossible for so small a group of mixed Asian pupils to terrorise the school?”

“They did,” Mr Webster insisted.

The defence QC claimed by September 2006, any racial tensions were “effectively resolved”, but Mr Webster disputed the situation was resolved or even “very much improved”.

The High Court hearing, which is expected to last five weeks, continues today.