Schoolboy relives beating

8:51am Wednesday 9th January 2008

SCHOOLBOY Henry Webster has relived the moment he was savagely beaten with a claw hammer.

Henry said he had turned away from the fight when he was attacked from behind with a claw hammer outside his school.

He was left with permanent brain damage.

The 16-year-old stood in the witness box yesterday to watch a video of the police interview he gave shortly after the attack at Ridgeway School.

In the footage Henry said he could "see stars" as the hammer was rammed into the back of his head.

"I went down to the tennis courts and then these men came through the gate and they looked at me," he said in the interview.

"The one in the black jacket pushed me, then started punching and I tried to walk away.

"That's when I was hit on the back of the head.

"Then I fell to the floor and I was screaming."

Despite his serious head injuries, Henry remained conscious throughout.

Speaking to police officers he described the moment he was struck with the hammer.

"I heard screams, then I was punched in the back of my head," said the rugby-playing teenager.

"They were all kicking me when I felt the two big hits. I was curled up on the floor but they kept repeatedly hitting me.

"Then I felt the hammer hit the back of my head. I know it was a hammer because if it was a punch, your vision does not change. As I got hit my vision turned to stars - it all separated, what I could see because it was so powerful.

"It was the same with several other hits.

"They were only attacking my head. I had no other injuries. They surrounded me kicking my hands to stop me holding my head - then they ran off. I got up, stumbled about three steps and fell over."

Henry said he had seen at least five adults walking towards him across the school tennis courts just before the attack, but could only describe two.

He also told how his injuries would stay with him for the rest of his life.

"The hammer had gone through my head, through my skull and into the fluid in my brain," he said.

"I have been told I will never recover, because the brain cells will not reform."

Henry described how he had been insulted by one of the boys earlier in the school day and the pair had agreed to a fight.

"He said If you want to sort this out, down the tennis courts, me and you, after school,'" he recalled.

"I said: Okay then, as long as it's one on one'.

"Everyone from the school was going down because they all knew there was going to be a fight."

Henry is expected to return to the witness box today to give further evidence.

He will be allowed to take regular breaks during his evidence because his brain injury means he can no longer concentrate for more than 20 minutes at a time.