KAREN knows only too well what it is like to have your life torn apart by bullies. Two years ago, her then 15-year-old daughter was left with a fractured skull after being attacked by a gang of girls. But while her daughter's physical injuries, horrific though they were, have healed, the torment is still going on.

"Everything has changed since that day. Our lives have changed completely," says Karen. "It has affected us all and it has all gone downhill."

Karen, not her real name, has seen her daughter run away from their County Durham home three times. "She was a good kid until she got beaten up," she says. "She just went in herself, she completely changed. She has got no friends now, she doesn't trust anyone.

"The counsellor said it would turn to anger but that hasn't happened and she's stopped going now. She has been on anti-depressants and she cries if anyone shouts. She can't stand noise or a crowd."

And the ordeal has taken its toll on Karen's two younger daughters, leaving them constantly on edge and with a mother who admits she has become over-protective. "My other two don't go out and they don't like to be around a group of girls," Karen says. "I know I'm getting too protective: I take them to school and pick them up, even though I know I shouldn't.

"My youngest one, who is 13, had a nightmare the other night about fighting. It has been an awful thing and it has affected everybody."

One schoolgirl who has helped raise the plight of bully victims on a national stage is Joanne Geldart, the Ferryhill teenager who went to Downing Street after the diary of her long-running ordeal at the hands of bullies was published in The Northern Echo.

Joanne took her case for a Children's Commissioner, backed by the NSPCC, to Tony Blair, as a way of trying to ensure schools took a consistent approach to bullying. The variation between schools is an issue which troubles Joanne's mum, Ann.

"I think every school should have a bullying policy, even primary schools, and children should be taught how to relate to each other," Ann says. "At the moment it is very inconsistent because it is up to the individual head teachers. A Children's Commissioner would have the power to say that every school must have a policy."

But she says one of the obstacles is that some head teachers are reluctant to talk about bullying, for fear it will tar their schools as ones where bullies roam the playground. "You have to get the schools to understand that they have a problem," she says. "It seems to be a bit of a stigma and some don't like to admit it goes on.

"But we know children bully each other, it has been happening for centuries, and we need to have policies in place and teach children how to treat each other."

Joanne told the Echo in June that the bullying had become so bad she had considered "ending it all" on several occasions. A phrase which added to Ann's shock last night when she heard of the death of Hartlepool teenager Elaine Swift. "I just thought that Joanne could get that low sometimes," she says. "I was just so shocked when I heard. It is so tragic. Something like this shouldn't happen."

Figures released earlier this year showed this region has one of the highest levels in the country of children who consider suicide. According to ChildLine, over a 12-month period, 54 children from the North-East and Yorkshire had contemplated taking their own lives, or had already made an attempt. And bullying was the major cause.

But there are often similarities between bullies and victims, according to Barry Sudworth, psychology lecturer at Teesside University and a former educational psychologist. Both are often loners, although for very different reasons.

"The aggressors usually don't seem to have many friends, and often they find it very difficult to communicate with their peers," he says. "They need to show themselves to be someone who can be the tough guy, and that they are competent and capable people. But the more incompetent and incapable they are, they more they tend to try and over-compensate."

He says bullies are often not good at sports, or expressing themselves physically, and would back away from confrontations with those who are good at sport, but use their aggression to make up for this shortcoming.

Victims are also generally not good at sport and will often spend time alone, but for them this is more a result of their own preference than through any communication difficulties. "They're often not going to be extrovert, and their interests are more likely to be artistic rather than sporting," he says.

"That sort of person isn't going to be seeking groups, and they will probably be more of a loner, not because they can't get on with people, but because they have just withdrawn themselves."

And bullying, he says, is much more than just physical aggression. "It doesn't necessarily have to be beating someone up. It is about displaying power over somebody, and the feeling that goes with that power. Sometimes the bully doesn't realise the effect they're having, but if the victim feels frightened or uncomfortable they may be being bullied. Most of the time, though, it stands out a mile.

"And when somebody is driven to take their own life, it shows what individuals are going through. It is difficult for us to appreciate what it is like, and the extremes some people are driven to."