A former student said teachers at Brisbane Boys College failed to protect him from bullying in a $600,000 damages claim. The statement of claim alleges the bullying began shortly after the boy arrived at the school at the start of grade five in 2004. His teacher ordered him outside the classroom to get changed for a swimming class, then ridiculed him in front of other students when he did so naked, rather than under his towel, which those who had already attended the school knew was the practice. It sparked, the documents claim, an "ongoing campaign of ridicule from the group of boys" that lasted until early 2007, when the boy's mother withdrew him from the school on the advice of a doctor, after he was pushed to the ground and stomped on. It left a shoe-imprint shaped bruise on his back.

"The two physical assaults, namely the playground incident of 15 November, 2005 and the further one on 15 February, 2007 represent seminal events in what now appears to have been an ongoing campaign of bullying, verbal abuse, ridicule and ostracism directed towards our client by a group of boys at Brisbane boys college over several years," the man's lawyer, Peter Black, said. "Despite complaints by our client and his mother about this course of conduct, the school took no steps or no adequate steps to protect our client from the harmful and offending behaviour." The boy claims to have spent his lunch breaks and recesses hiding in the school library to escape the group. Despite both he and his mother reporting it repeatedly to the junior school principal and then the middle school principal, and the boy undergoing sessions with the school counsellor, in the years he was at BBC, no action was taken to reprimand the group, particularly the main protagonist. "It appeared the school lacked the willpower to deal with (the main protagonist) and his group," Mr Black said.

"(His) parents were both surgeons and were both prominent at the school. "The claimant, unlike (him), did not have any brothers who also attended the school. The claimant simply appeared more expendable in the eyes of the school." The boy claims teachers also focused on his declining academic performance, rather than addressing the cause of it. "All the perpetrators of the bullying should have been called up and told they were the people who were at fault and their behaviour needed to be corrected," Mr Black said. "Insufficient steps were put in place to supervise and protect the claimant from physical assaults culminating in the claimant sustaining a fractured nose and ultimately being attacked from behind, thrown to the ground and stomped on.

"His three years of schooling at BBC were painful, agonising and mentally draining as he endured daily torment both verbally and physically." The boy was home schooled for two terms after being taken out of BBC and finished his education at another school. His lawyer said it took psychological counselling to reveal the full extent of the damage the bullying had done to his mental health. "The harm suffered by our client has turned out to be more psychological and long lasting than first thought," Mr Black said. He said his client suffered ongoing depression and anxiety and had previously contemplated suicide.

Much of the $600,000 in damages the man is seeking has been calculated on future loss of income. "The impairment meant he did not perform as well as he would otherwise have performed at school and as a consequence his career options were limited," Mr Black said. "He suffered psychiatric injury which will likely mean time off work or being forced to cease work earlier than he would otherwise have done so." The matter was heard briefly in the District Court in Brisbane on Wednesday morning, where Judge Michael Rackemann granted him leave to commence court proceedings against the school's overseeing body, the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association. Brisbane Boy's College did not have legal representation at the hearing.