A PUPIL who is suing a local authority for allegedly failing to protect her against bullying claims to have secretly taped a teacher telling her to “ignore” the fact that she was being physically abused.

Natalie King, 16, plans to use the recording — in which she was allegedly told the bullying would “die down” if she disregarded it — as evidence against Aberdeen city council.

King, from Newmachar, attended four schools in the Aberdeen area and claims she was physically and mentally abused by classmates from the age of six. She claims to have recorded more than 700 incidents, the worst of which allegedly took place at Dyce Academy, where she said she was attacked, called a whore and a bitch and threatened with death.

She says she reported the bullying to teachers but was offered no help. Her parents had several meetings with education officials and councillors but claim the council failed to stop the bullying. She eventually left full-time education aged 13.

Last August King received legal aid to launch an action against the council at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. She is claiming £20,000 for the psychological anguish she claims she suffered. The local authority denies the allegations and is defending the court action.

Cameron Fyfe, her solicitor, has a further 30 clients waiting to sue if her case is successful. He said the tape recordings, which also contain incidents of alleged bullying, were a “vital piece of evidence” in King’s case.

Although Fyfe has not heard the tapes, he said: “There does seem to be evidence in them that the school knew about the bullying and did nothing about it. The school was trying to say that there was hardly any bullying, what there was were the usual playground incidents and they did what they could to deal with the bullies. We dispute all these points.”

The tapes are expected to be aired as part of a BBC Panorama investigation into bullying next month. “We will be featuring stuff from Natalie she recorded in school . . . Natalie has tapes saying she got poor advice telling her to ignore physical bullying wherever it happened,” said Declan Lawn, a reporter for the programme. “If she ignored it, it would die down. That was a teacher at the school at the time whom Natalie approached several times.”

King claims she continues to suffer flashbacks and nightmares as a result of her seven-year ordeal which ruined her life and her career prospects. She had hoped to become an architect but has just one Standard Grade qualification.

“There are heaps of things I would like to do in the future but I find it hard to cope,” she said. “Some jobs I would like to do I do not have the qualifications for. I wanted to be a car mechanic, or an architect. For architecture you need physics, engineering, maths. Even for office work you need English and maths. I do not think I can get these grades now unless I go back to school.

“When it came to Standard Grades my maths teacher came to my house and I sat that one in my own kitchen. I could have done a lot better.”

Now 16, she has a job in a local office, but still finds it difficult to mix socially. “With girls, the scent . . . there is something in the perfume they wear and I get really scared,” she said.

A spokesman for Aberdeen city council said: “We are quite certain that there is no substance to the complaint. We will be defending it vigorously in court and we expect to win.”

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