QB-2022-002971 - [2025] EWHC 2445 (KB)

Introduction

The Claimant, Ms Irune Pedrayes Varela, brings a claim against Buckswood School Limited in relation to matters occurring in the autumn term of 2019, when the Claimant was 14 years of age and attending the school as a ‘full-time boarder’ whilst her parents were living in Spain. The proceedings commenced in 2022, when she was a child, and the claim initially proceeded with the assistance of a litigation friend; by the time of trial she was about to turn 20 years old.

Irune Pedrayes alleges that over the weekend of 27 to 29 September 2019, and whilst on the school’s premises, she was supplied by an older pupil with a drug which she was told was called “magic” and which she took in a vape. It is said on behalf of the Claimant, and it is not disputed by the Defendant, that “magic” is commonly used as a name for mephedrone and that mephedrone is classified as a ‘Class B’ drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. She says that after using the vape she noticed “something strange in my head” and “ran to my room, scared, and got into bed”. The following morning, 30 September 2019, the Claimant felt unwell and went to see the school nurse. The nurse recorded that the Claimant told her that that she had taken “some drugs yesterday in a vape at about 11am”, that she “has a headache”, that “she has black in her vision, feels that things are repeating themselves”; the nurse noted “paranoid and manic symptoms obvious”. The school arranged for the Claimant to be taken to the local hospital where she was seen by a doctor and assessed as suffering the effects of recreational drug use; she returned to school that afternoon.

The Claimant alleges that the school informed her parents that she had been vaping and that she had had to go to hospital, but did not inform her parents that she had admitted to taking “magic” or any drug, nor the fact that the attendance at hospital was related to the use of any drugs; rather, the school gave her parents the impression that the hospital visit was due to an unrelated infection. She alleges that she subsequently took further illicit substances whilst at the school, including “THC” (tetrahydrocannabinol,) two days later.

Thereafter, Irune Pedrayes’s behaviour at school continued to be poor and her parents were eventually told on 20 November 2019 that she would be expelled if she was not voluntarily withdrawn from the school. Her parents then withdrew her from the school within a few days. Following her return to Spain, she was eventually diagnosed with psychiatric injuries resulting from drug use and received anti-psychotic medication.

A large amount of agreement was reached between the two psychiatrists instructed by the parties. It is common ground between the psychiatrists that the Claimant’s consumption of illicit drugs, starting with “magic” whilst at the school, precipitated an episode of psychosis and mania with visual hallucinations, déjà vue experiences and delusional and persecutory beliefs, which symptoms continued until she received treatment with anti-psychotic medication after her return to Spain. It is also common ground that she suffered personal injury in the form of a psychotic episode, together with post-traumatic stress disorder and hallucinogen perception disorder; the latter two injuries are said to be caused or contributed to by the delay in establishing appropriate treatment.

Ms McTague, counsel for the Claimant, divided the Claimant’s case on breach of duty into three issues which I summarise (albeit in a different order to Ms McTague’s analysis) as follows:

The Defendant, Buckswood School Limited, accepts that it owed a duty of care to the Claimant, but denies that it breached that duty and contends that it complied with its obligations to put in place appropriate systems to prevent students from accessing and taking drugs and that it took reasonable care of the Claimant.