A SCHOOL facing prosecution under new disabled rights legislation was today slammed for its ignorance by the doctor of a pupil who was banned from trips after suffering a diabetic blackout.

Clitheroe Royal Grammar School will be the first in the country to be prosecuted under the Disability Discrimination Act over the case of Tom White.

Today his doctor warned other patients who attend the school that they may face similar action and said the school was ignorant of the condition. But the school insisted the decision was nothing to do with disability and was to ensure the safety of other pupils.

Tom, 15, had a blackout on a school ski-ing trip in Austria in February and has now been banned from going on other holidays and exchanges.

His furious parents, Malcolm and Rosemary, said they tried to negotiate with headmaster Stuart Holt for months in a bid to overturn the ban before asking the Disability Rights Commission to mediate.

The Commission, a new independent body set up by the Government, has now decided to prosecute the school, which has 28 days to respond before the case goes ahead.

Sue Pratt, of the Commission, said: "It's grossly unfair to ban him, he's only had one attack. We sincerely hope that the school uses this time to lift the ban."

But Tom's consultant paediatrician, Queen's Park Hospital diabetes expert Dr Claire Smith, said their accusations showed a complete ignorance of the condition.

She said: "Severe reactions can happen to any patient on insulin, it's part and parcel of the condition. It was not Tom's fault.

"The action the school has taken has been medically uninformed. They have never sought any form of expert advice and when we have offered them advice they have disregarded it."

Dr Smith has contacted her two other patients who attend the school to warn them they may face similar action if they have an attack in school. Tom, of Slaidburn Road, Waddington, who was diagnosed as diabetic when he was nine, said: "It was the first blackout I've ever had and I haven't had any since. I was only out for a few minutes."

He said when he returned from the trip he was told by staff that he wouldn't be able to take part in a watersports holiday planned for next year or a German exchange programme this term. Tom is taking GCSE German next year.

Headteacher Stuart Holt wrote to his parents saying he wasn't willing to put extra responsibilities on his staff.

Mr White said: "When this first happened I thought it was just a knee-jerk reaction and if I rang up and discussed it, it would be fine.

"But they just didn't want to know."

Mr White said he could understand if teachers had been frightened when Tom collapsed but insisted his son had never been in danger.

He said: "If they had done nothing at all, in half an hour or so his adrenaline would have kicked in and his blood sugar level would have gone up."

Barbara Berry, leader of the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley parents group of charity Diabetes UK, said she thought the school's actions were dreadful.

She said: "These children have enough to cope with without being discriminated against. "

Mr Holt today refused to comment on the case but a statement from the school said: "This has nothing to do with disability: it is rather that we make a risk assessment and take into account previous behaviour to ensure the safety of all our pupils.

"If a student on a trip behaves in a way which endangers his health, or in a way which reduces the level of staff supervision for other students, then we may decide not to take that particular student on future trips."

Ms Pratt said the school could be fined between £1,000 and £3,000 and told to pay compensation.

Education Secretary David Blunkett, speaking on BBC Radio 4 today said the Government was intending to introduce legislation clarifying the law.

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said it was a matter between the Whites and the school, but added: "The council believes in promoting the right of all disabled people to participate as fully as every other citizen in community life."