[Harry!]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090320/...g-3fd0ae9.html

Teachers forced unruly pupils to settle their disputes at school with brutal bare-knuckle cage fights, a report says.

Staff at the school in Dallas were provided with "gladiator-style entertainment", whistleblowers have claimed.

One parent alerted the authorities after her son returned from the inner-city school with a swollen hand.

In the report the school's former principal Donald Moten is accused of getting security guards to put youngsters in the steel cage to "let 'em duke it out".

He denies the fights ever took place.

One pupil, Cortland Williamson, told his mother Angela that he had fought in the cage for up to 10 minutes.

Other students at South Oak Cliff High stood around "clapping and screaming" as they fought inside the "arena", the boy said.

Ms Williamson, who removed her son from the school, said: "I said enough is enough, and we just left.

"This was the norm. My son said this is what they do - let them fight in the cage."

Many employees at the school knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue between 2003 and 2005, according to the report by school investigators.

"More than anything, I'm in shock and disbelief - shocked that this could ever occur and shocked that it would be condoned by a professional administrator," said Jerome Garza, a member of the school board in Texas.

No criminal charges were ever filed and there was no mention in the 2008 report of whether anyone required medical attention or whether any employees were disciplined.

Moten, who retired as principal last year, said: "That's barbaric. You can't do that at a high school. You can't do that anywhere."