Ten pupils in drugs shame

Ten pupils at one of London's leading private schools have been suspended for smoking cannabis and ordered to undergo regular drug tests to ensure they do not re-offend.

The 12- and 13-year-old pupils have been told to stay away from the £2,825-a-term all-boys University College School in Hampstead for a week.

Headteacher Kenneth Durham took the action after a parent alerted the school to the pupils' activities. Parents and police were informed. He has ordered that the boys co-operate with police to uncover the dealer who supplied them with the drug in Camden Town.

Mr Durham said: "They had been going off in small groups on Friday afternoons after school and experimenting with the drug in a local churchyard. We interviewed them and they were pretty truthful and cooperative." The school, ranked 57 in London's league table of education last year, recently launched an anti-drugs campaign.