THE father of a teenage girl says school bullies have driven his daughter to the brink of suicide.

Niall McPhillips, 36, of The Avenue, Dilton Marsh, wants staff at Frome Community College to deal with the people who are making 16-year-old Jade's life a misery before it is too late.

He said: "We've been into the school to see the teachers so many times, but they never seem to do anything to stop the bullying.

"They say they have procedures in place to deal with the problem, but this has been going on for two years now, and is getting worse.

"It has been the same people picking on her throughout this time.

"When I was at school, if you were found to be a bully, you were either expelled or the teacher would give you a slap." College principal Barry Bates acknowledged bullying does sometimes take place, but insisted there are effective measures for dealing with it.

He said: "We have a very thorough anti-bullying policy. "This includes a bullying co-ordinator, peer group support networks and a site that students experiencing problems can send e-mails to. We use what we call a restorative justice programme, whereby we get together all the parties involved and let them talk about what is happening."

He said each time anybody comes forward to talk about bullying incidents it is taken very seriously and immediately investigated and dealt with. "We have always taken appropriate action whenever there have been issues with Jade."

Mr McPhillips said it has got to the point where he would like to take action himself on his daughter's behalf, but he realises this is out of the question. Jade has had trouble with bullies before and her parents moved her to Frome after she encountered problems at another school.

"We moved her to Frome because we had heard they took a strong stance against bullying and apparently they have a zero tolerance approach," said Mr McPhillips. "Since going there she has suffered physically and verbally from these idiots, who are all the same age and some are in her tutor group. She has walked out of class a number of times because there is only so much you can take."