ONE of seven pupils from Bury Church High School has been expelled after being caught smoking cannabis in the school grounds.

The Year 10 pupils were given fixed-term suspensions last Friday (Nov 24) after they were caught smoking the Class B drug during the Thursday lunch break.

An investigation by staff has since discovered the youngster who bought the cannabis from a dealer in Bury's Interchange. He has been excluded from the school permanently.

However, the initial interviews with the seven has resulted in the father of one of the boys accusing staff of using heavy-handed interrogation techniques to force at least one youngster to admit his "guilt" in smoking the dope even though he had not. The school has denied the allegation.

One of the excluded pupils told the Bury Times this week that only three of the group actually took the drug while himself and the other three pupils just watched.

The youngster, who did not want to be named, said: "One of the boy's bought the cannabis in Bury Interchange on Wednesday and brought in the drug the day after.

"He and two others smoked the cannabis. The rest of us were there when it happened but we didn't try it."

The seven boys were interviewed on Thursday afternoon and throughout most of Friday before the decision was made, with the support of all their parents, to exclude them from school for three days.

The boy's father is now planning to speak to the Haslam Brow school's head teacher, Mr Phil Grady, about the two-day long investigation.

He said: "My son said he did not take the drug and I believe him. However, during the interviews by staff he was forced to admit he did just to satisfy the teacher.

"The interrogation techniques were used to get my son to admit something he hadn't done. I will take this matter further."

Following last week's exclusion orders, Mr Grady said that the school took a very strong line against pupils who took drugs into the school.

Mr Grady said yesterday (Thurs Nov 30): "The boy who brought the drug into school has been expelled.

"However, there was no heavy-handed approach by staff to investigate this matter."