THE mother of a bullying victim wept yesterday as her son told a court of his harrowing ordeal at the hands of his North-East fellow pupil tormentors.

Jamie Bright told Teesside County Court how he had "started to lose respect" for his parents after they told him it would be all right to go back to Shotton Hall Secondary School, in Peterlee, on several occasions but the bullying carried on despite teachers being aware of the problem.

The 20-year-old also said he was "humiliated and upset" at being placed in a resource centre at the school in a bid to stop what was happening.

His mother Doreen wept as he described a catalogue of violence he suffered in the early 1990s from a group of about boys at the school.

In the most severe incident, he said he was thrown against a wall and the next thing he remembered was waking up in the medical unit.

He had been kicked unconscious and said he suffered bleeding into the skin behind his ear, his brain had hit his skull and he had multiple bruising to his body.

Barrister Ruth Trippier, acting for the council and the governors, put it to Mr Bright that he was a "boaster" at school, got into fights about it and "came off worst". He denied the allegations.

Mr Bright and another former pupil at the school, Caroline Newby, also 20, have brought separate £50,000 actions against the governors of the school and Durham County Council, the education authority.

The claims are challenged by the governors and the county council.

The case continues.