Swindon’s Ridgeway School was “ruled” by its pupils, a parent and school employee told London’s High Court yesterday.

Debbie MacDivitt, a school cleaner whose daughter also attended Ridgeway, said she was “disgusted” when she heard about the claw hammer attack on Henry Webster, then aged 15, because she “knew that what happened to him could have been prevented by the school”.

Mrs MacDivitt blamed the violence, which left Mr Webster with skull fractures and serious brain-damage, on simmering racial tensions between white and Asian pupils which the authorities allegedly failed to defuse.

She told the court: “All that was needed was for someone to have done something about the racist problems within the school before everything got out of hand.”

Mrs MacDivitt, who has worked at Ridgeway for 13 years, said that “everyone knew” about the “Asian Invasion” gang which was said to have been the catalyst for the January 2007 attack on Mr Webster.

She had been subjected to “intimidation and abuse” from pupils over the years, she said, particularly from Asian boys, but none of her complaints to her superiors had achieved any tangible results.

Mrs MacDivitt, in her witness statement, presented a picture of a school plagued by random fights – some of which broke out in front of teachers – and by the pupils’ obscene language, some of it directed at staff to their faces.

Mrs MacDivitt was giving evidence on the third day of the Webster family’s £1 million compensation claim against Ridgeway Foundation School, which denies liability for the attack and injuries.

Mr Webster was felled by the claw hammer when he went to the school’s tennis courts expecting a pre-arranged “one-on-one” fight with another teenager but ended up being assaulted by a mob, including adults from outside the school.

Although he made a reasonable recovery from his devastating “compound depressed skull fractures”, Mr Webster has been left with what his QC, Robert Glancy, termed “brain damage of some severity”.

His lawyers allege a comprehensive failure to safeguard him from the risk of attack by outsiders – despite warning signs that racial tensions in the classroom were drawing in troublemakers from outside the school.

The school is vigorously defending the action, with its QC, Ronald Walker, insisting that staff had all but resolved any lingering racial tensions by the time of the January 2007 hammer assault.

The school is also disputing that the attack on Mr Webster was racially motivated.

Also suing alongside Mr Webster are his mother, Elizabeth, his younger brother, Joseph, and his step-father, Roger Durnford, who say they were left mentally scarred after witnessing the aftermath of the brutal assault.

Race became a flashpoint at the school around three years ago, Mrs MacDivitt told Mr Justice Nicol, and reached a new height when a “big fight” broke out between whites and Asians on the playing fields in the summer of that year.

When her daughter returned from school on the day of the fight, she told her mother that the clash had been sparked by a gang called “Asian Invasion”, the court was told.

After this incident, she noticed that the Asian boys would throng together in the corridors making derogatory comments towards her as she passed by.

“One of the Asian boys would kick a bottle around in front of me when I was trying to pick it up,” she said, adding: “Whenever I had to walk between and through the gangs they made me feel really intimidated”.

One incident stood out for her, said Mrs MacDivitt, describing how two Asian boys laughed at her and “abused” her while systematically ripping up seats in the school.

She reported this to her superiors but nothing came of it, the court heard.

Mrs MacDivitt spoke of her fears for her own daughter’s safety at the time because of the “trouble” at Ridgeway. She concluded: “I feel duty-bound to make this statement because I, like Elizabeth Webster, am the mother of a pupil at the Ridgeway Foundation School. I have been and still am concerned about my daughter’s safety.”

In cross-examination, Mr Walker asked Mrs MacDivitt if she ever saw anyone get “seriously hurt” while fighting, to which she said “no”, also conceding that she never witnessed any inter-racial clashes at first hand.

She also agreed that there had been a “white gang” in existence at the school as well as an Asian one.

Mr Walker took issue with her claim that it was “easy for people from outside the school to get into the tennis courts”.

He said: “I suggest that the gate was locked during the day.”

“Definitely not,” she replied.

The hearing continues.