The parents of a 15-year-old pupil who was permanently excluded for taking part in a gang attack on a fellow pupil had sought to have the expulsion overturned in court.

The High Court rejected the parents' argument that the attack was a "one-off" and that the pupil had the right to a warning before the final sanction of expulsion.

Mr Justice Scott Baker, denying the parents' attempts for a judicial review, said the argument that headteachers could not expel a pupil for a serious first misdemeanour "flew in the face of common sense".

Welcome from teachers' union

The pupil, whose identity is not being made public, had been expelled for involvement in an attack which had put a fellow pupil into hospital.

The victim had been attacked by a gang of pupils in a street outside the school, with the boy being kicked and punched while he lay on the ground. Four pupils were expelled as a result of the incident.

The headteacher said that without the intervention of adults in breaking up the attack, she would have been "fearful of the outcome".

The decision of the court that "the school was fully justified in permanently excluding this 15-year-old" was welcomed by the General Secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, Nigel de Gruchy.

"We welcome that the High Court judge is recognising that the headteachers should be able to act and impose exclusions, including so-called 'first offences'," he said.