A teenager faces expulsion after he hacked into his school's website and posted a statement insulting one of his teachers and branding him a bully.

The schoolboy, understood to be aged 14 and in year nine, gained access to the website of Worden Sports College, Westfield Drive, Leyland, after seeing a teacher type in the password.

He wrote personal insults and remarks about a teacher, under the science overview section, and warned parents not to send their children to the school.

Rumours among pupils are that the hurtful remarks were on the school's website for days before being removed on the afternoon of Friday, July, 8.

Headteacher, Sue Rignall, said: "I am absolutely horrified and very disappointed that he felt the need to do this.

"We are treating it very seriously, and have launched an investigation and have taken steps to make certain that this never happens again."

She said the boy had acted in revenge after being reprimanded, by the teacher, for carving his name into a desk.

"The youngster concerned has admitted what happened; he watched a member of staff logging into the website and copied down the password.

"I think it probably was a schoolboy prank but a very dangerous one, perhaps he did not know the implications of what he was doing."

She said he had used a computer in a public library to log into the school's website to

post the abusive remarks.

The Citizen was alerted to the statement on the school's website, www.worden.lancsngfl.ac.uk, on Friday at 3.30pm, by a concerned parent. By 3.52pm the words had been pulled.

Mrs Rignall said she could not be sure how long the statement had been there, but that the school's IT technician checked the website daily.

The matter came to light when pupils told members of staff on Friday.

Ironically a banner advertising the website, stoptextbully.com, that aims to stop children being bullied via text messaging, appeared above the damaging statement on the website.

"It is a relief that he did not have access to secure staff or pupil records," said Mrs Rignall. "The password he had only gave him access to the science section of the website, which has information for parents and pupils."

All passwords for every section of the website have now been changed, she said, and teachers have been told not to enter passwords while pupils are around.

"The teacher concerned is devastated to have had that sort of thing put up, he's a human being," she added.

The parents of the child have been informed and Mrs Rignall is waiting to speak to school governors to decide whether he should be excluded permanently or for a number of days.

Mrs Rignall (right) rebutted the boy's claims that staff bully pupils saying she and the teacher involved had been left feeling bullied themselves.

"In the Lancashire value added pupil questionnaire, which is taken confidentially by pupils, the vast majority of youngsters at Worden say the school is a safe learning environment where they do not feel intimidated or bullied," she added.