A teenager today launched a High Court battle for damages against her local education authority for allegedly failing to protect her from bullying.

In what is believed to be one of the first cases of its kind to come before the courts, Leah Bradford-Smart, 19, from Crawley, claims she suffered personal injuries as a result of negligence by West Sussex County Council.

Her barrister, Augustus Ullstein QC, told a judge in London she suffered "persistent and prolonged bullying" when she was a pupil at Ifield Middle School, Crawley, between September 1990 and July 1993.

The authority is contesting her claim and the judge, Mr Justice Garland, is to decide on the issue of liability during a trial expected to last five or six days.

Mr Ullstein told the court that the "substance" of the allegation against the education authority was that it "failed to protect her from bullying".

He said psychiatric evidence would be called during the hearing.

He said: "This is a case in which there is a conflict of evidence between the claimant (Miss Bradford-Smart) and her mother on the one hand and the teaching staff on the other."

Mr Ullstein said the teenager's case was supported by a consultant psychiatrist who "says that there is no explanation for her symptoms apart from bullying".

He told the judge: "That, therefore, is a real matter which the court has to decide: Namely, was this claimant bullied throughout her school career at Ifield Middle School or not?"

Miss Bradford-Smart said in a witness statement that other children started "calling me creep and swot and pushing me about" and that she was frightened to tell anyone because they said they would get her if she "grassed them up".