Bethany James knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of a violent attack at the hands of another girl. The 15-year-old from Bradford said she thought that she would die when fellow schoolgirls fell on her like “wild animals” in an attack last year.

A photograph of Bethany in hospital, taken by her mother, shows the problem of violent girl crime. Bethany lost consciousness during the assault and it took three adults two attempts to drag off her attackers.

Two girls were convicted in connection with the attack. After pleading guilty one was ordered to carry out community service and the other was given a reprimand.

Speaking to The Times yesterday Anthony James, 46, said that the attack had affected his daughter’s preparation for GCSEs.

“We decided she should change schools and obviously that is not ideal just before GCSEs. I think her education has probably suffered as a result, although we are all doing our best to put the attack behind us,” he said.

“The internet is really fuelling the problem. If you type the word ‘fight’ into YouTube you get thousands of hits. It is really firing young people up, girls and boys,” he added.

Mr James said that the police were taking crime by girls more seriously and that he hoped his daughter’s attackers would turn their lives around.

After the attack Bethany recounted the details to The Times.

“They came up from behind,” she said. “One of them grabbed hold of my hair and pulled me down to the floor. I said, ‘Get off my hair, what are you doing?’. But they started stamping on my head and kicking it. I couldn’t speak again and they weren’t saying anything. I was bleeding everywhere.

“One of my mates said, ‘Why are you doing it?’. They said, ‘Because she’s been getting gobby at school’. I was just thinking, ‘I am going to die here’. I passed out but I woke up and they were still doing it. Two lads got out of their car and dragged them off but they came back and carried on.”

The mother of a friend dragged the two girls off Bethany. “I don’t know how long it lasted but I’d say it was about a quarter of an hour,” Bethany said. Even after she escaped to the safety of the car of her friend’s mother the girls came back.

“One of the girls went up to the car and was banging it with her hands and pushing it and the other one tried opening the car door,” Bethany said. “They were like wild animals.”

The full extent of violence one girl is capable of meting out on another was illustrated by an assault filmed on a mobile phone and posted on YouTube last month.

Jade Morrison, 16, was filmed catching her frightened victim with a thumping right hook during the assault in a Glasgow street.

The footage shows Morrison out of control and arguing with the other teenager before sending her victim sprawling on to the road.

Morrison is first seen turning her back on her unsuspecting victim but as she pretends to walk away, she spins round and lands a punch.

Taunts of “flaired . . . flaired” can be heard from her friends as her dazed red-haired victim lies floored on the ground.

The attack came after Morrison, who has been abusing alcohol since she was 14, was allowed to walk free from court over an unprovoked knife attack in which she admitted stabbing Jackie Hart, 23, five times in the back.

Ms Hart suffered a collapsed lung and was left scarred for life after the attack in Glasgow in 2006.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• No room for Baldrick in overstretched army
• Freecycle booms as middle class feels squeeze
• Marksman gets £5,000 over ‘serial killer’ quip