A teenage girl left with PTSD after she ended up “high all weekend” when given drugs by sixth-form boys at a private boarding school is suing for £145,000 in compensation.
Irune Pedrayes was only 14 and in her first weeks at the £34,000-a-year Buckswood School, near Hastings, East Sussex, when she was supplied with mephedrone-laced vape liquid by senior boys at her school.
She claims it led to a weekend of drug use, with Miss Pedrayes, now 19, saying she spent Friday to Sunday vaping the Class B drug and drinking alcohol with others on the school's rugby pitch.
But the apparent binge landed her in hospital after she suffered an extended “psychotic outbreak” due to her intake, including symptoms of hallucinations and anxiety.
Her parents were not told and the breakdown continued for weeks until she left the school to return to her native Spain, where she finally received anti-psychotic medication treatment.
Now an adult, she is suing the school for £145,000 in compensation at the High Court, claiming its failure to properly supervise pupils led to her drug use and resulting psychotic breakdown and PTSD.
Her lawyers say Miss Pedrayes was a "vulnerable" pupil with additional needs who should have been supported better, while adequate supervision of its pupils would have meant the three-day binge did not happen.
Prior to moving to the school from Spain, she had never used drugs and it was only when she arrived at Buckswood that she succumbed to the "easy access" there, they say.
However, the school - which caters for children aged 11-19 and calls itself a "global school in the heart of the British countryside" and claims in promotional materials to offer a "safe, supportive and family-like atmosphere" - denies liability for her psychiatric conditions, claiming robust anti-drug policies were in place.
Sitting at the High Court in London, Judge Geraint Webb KC was told that Miss Pedrayes had suffered with "psychological problems" while in Spain, where she failed a year at school before moving to the UK.
But her behaviour when she moved to Buckswood was challenging, with repeated detentions, before being "gated" - confined to school grounds at weekend - at the time of the drug incident.
Her barrister, Meghann (CORR) McTague, said that, during a weekend in September 2019, Miss Pedrayes had been supplied with 'magic', a vape liquid containing the Class B drug mephedrone, which also goes under the street names "meow-meow' or 'm-cat', by upper sixth boys.
"The claimant spent that whole weekend - Friday, Saturday and Sunday - consuming a Class B drug that was supplied to her by older boys at the school, and drinking alcohol that was also supplied to her," she said.
"This drug use took place on the rugby pitch at the school. She was with four other students from the school. Nobody discovered those students.
"Nobody noticed, despite attending mealtimes and at bedtime, that she was high all weekend."
The school accepts that, due to her drug intake, Miss Pedrayes suffered a "psychotic" incident, which led to her being taken to hospital on the Monday.
She complained of visual hallucinations, sensations of deja vu, tearfulness and anxiety, but went back to the school without her parents being informed of the drug use.
After that, her behaviour continued to deteriorate, including a further incident of drug use, before she left the school in November 2019.
Back in Spain, she finally received treatment for her psychosis, but has been left with PTSD, heightened anxiety and a greater risk going forward of mental health problems.
Her barrister, Ms McTague, said the school was at fault for what happened, because a 14-year-old child should not be able to take drugs on school grounds for three days without being seen.
"Prior to her attendance at the school, she had never taken drugs - it was the school which provided her with ‘easy access’ to drugs," she told the judge.
"Whilst she was under Buckswood’s care, she was able to consume drugs and alcohol with other children, as well as boys aged between 17 and 19 in the sixth form, on the school premises.
"It is Miss Pedrayes’ evidence that there was ‘easy access’ to drugs at the school and that ‘surveillance varied in terms of strictness’.
"In her estimation, the use of drugs at the school was not something that was ‘very important’ to the school."
She said the school should have been well aware of what happened, because another pupil had reported how Miss Pedrayes had been supplied with 'magic' by sixth formers who bought it online and had it delivered to the school itself.
There had been a "total failure of supervision" by the school, because boys had been able to get the drugs in and then the students had been able to take them "in plain sight."
"My client's position is she was able to take drugs on the rugby pitch over the course of the weekend and as a result she was high much of that weekend," she said.
"The students should have been supervised by the boarding house staff. If they had been supervised properly, this never would have happened."
She continued: "Miss Pedrayes’ parents were never told by the school that she had been hospitalised as a result of consuming a Class B drug supplied to her by another pupil, nor that she was suffering psychiatric symptoms as a result.
"Instead, her parents were told only that she had used a vape and that she was going to be given a smoker’s reform sanction."
She added: "Her psychosis was left untreated until she was later threatened with expulsion by the school and returned to Spain."
Ms McTague said the school had previous problems with drug use, with a January 2019 Ofsted report mentioning "recent concerns about students using drugs."
"The claimant submits that this was far from a ‘one-off’ isolated incident," she told the judge.
"Older students were having drugs delivered to the school and were able to use them in groups on the school premises with younger children.
"There was an endemic problem of substance abuse and a culture of tolerance."
For the school, barrister Nigel Edwards told the judge that it denies breaching the duty of care owed to Miss Pedrayes, pointing out that she had been made aware of the school's ban on drugs and alcohol.
"The defendant avers that it complied with its obligations and put in place risk assessments, systems and rules to educate, discourage and try to prevent pupils accessing drugs," he said.
"Staff were available night and day within the boarding house. School rules were in place expressly prohibiting illicit drugs.
"There was a behaviour policy in place. Staff could and did search pupils' rooms. Staff could and did search pupils.
"The seriousness with which the school approached illicit drugs can be demonstrated by the willingness of the school to contact the local police about drugs issues, test and suspend pupils found to have taken drugs and bring in dog teams to check the premises.
"The school had in place a reasonably adequate system of supervision...it is for the claimant to establish that the supervision provided fell below the reasonable standard."
Part of Miss Pedrayes' case is that there were "clear safeguarding risks" relating to her, including "impulsive and negative behaviour," but that she had been instead treated by the school simply as a "badly behaved child."
However, giving evidence, the school's principal, Kevin Samson, told the judge there was no evidence before the incident that Miss Pedrayes was "a cause for concern regarding vaping, smoking or drinking."
He said the school had not told her parents about the incident after it happened because she had taken a urine test, which produced a negative result.
Continuing, he said he doubted that the drug use could have really happened on the rugby pitch, which is in plain sight, or whether Miss Pedrayes had really consumed drugs all weekend, as she claims.
He also insisted that adequate supervision was in place for pupils, adding: "It's not realistic to have a member of staff next to every child 24 hours a day."
Following a two-day trial, Judge Webb reserved his decision on the case until a later date.
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