A senior teacher at the Ridgeway School has vehemently denied that the school was in the grip of “wholesale chaos” in the time before the hammer attack on Henry Webster.

Ronald Piper, testifying at the start of the third week of Henry Webster’s million-pound claim against the school, was cross-examined by Henry’s QC, Robert Glancy, about the “standard of discipline” at Ridgeway, under the aegis of then headteacher, Elizabeth Cooper.

Mr Piper, who denied disciplinary standards had seriously dropped under Ms Cooper’s leadership, was asked to comment on evidence from school cleaner, Debbie MacDivitt, who earlier claimed that disruptive pupils “ruled” at Ridgeway.

The QC asked Mr Piper if he agreed that “discipline and conduct” had got “really bad”, and if he disagreed with Ms MacDivitt’s picture of the school having gone steadily downhill by the time Ms Cooper left in 2005.

“I wouldn’t say that it was going downhill,” he told the High Court.

The QC also pressed him on Mrs MacDivitt’s claims that Miss Cooper reached the point “where she didn’t seem to care much about the school” and had “given up imposing discipline”.

Mr Piper said this was an unfair description, adding that Ms Cooper had been a “very committed person” and was “not the sort of person to give up on her job”.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Nicol, intervened to ask: “In your view, had standards of discipline declined by the time she left the school?”

“I wouldn’t say they declined immeasurably, to the extent that has been suggested,” Mr Piper replied.

Asked to elaborate his views by Mr Glancy, he continued: “I accept that there was change, but I disagree with the picture of wholesale chaos, or sharp decline going downhill.

“I would disagree with that.”

“So the change had been for the worse during her time in office?” asked Mr Glancy, to which Mr Piper responded that there had been an “undesirable change”.

Mr Piper’s evidence came on the third day of the defence case in Henry Webster’s £1 million compensation claim against the Ridgeway Foundation School over the January 2007 hammer attack that almost cost him his life and left him seriously brain damaged.

The school denies all blame for the attack on Henry, pointing out that it took place after school hours, and arguing that, short of stopping and searching every visitor, nothing could have been done to prevent what happened. They also deny the attack was racially motivated.

The school’s duty was to discipline pupils, not outside adults, and arguments that laxity in enforcing school rules contributed to the attack on Henry near the school’s tennis courts have been described by the school’s barrister, Ronald Walker QC, as “fanciful” and “implausible”.

The hearing continues.