FETTES GIRL EXPELLED FOR DRUGS DISCLOSURE

A PUPIL at Fettes College has been expelled for disclosing to newspapers
details of three pupils involved with drugs.

The 17-year-old girl was asked to leave the private school in Edinburgh,
where Tony Blair was once a pupil, for breaching its rules of confidentiality.

The move comes after three sixth form boys at Fettes were expelled for
separate incidents involving drugs.

Details of their expulsions were published in various newspapers and the
girl was accused by the school of being a source of the disclosures.

Although drugs, alcohol or general misconduct are relatively common grounds
for dismissal, expulsion from school for speaking to the press and
disclosing confidential information is virtually without precedent.

Michael Spens, headmaster of Fettes, said: "These actions compounded the
distress of pupils and their families, who had already suffered enough
personal tragedy through their own actions."

Fettes is one of Scotland's leading private schools with fees of up to
UKP17,000 a year for full boarding senior pupils.

Two of the teenagers were found with cannabis at a sixth-form party held at
the school on Saturday.

Guy Thomas 17, the third pupil, said yesterday in a newspaper interview
that his expulsion had been unfair.

The teenager said that he had been caught in a drunken state by a teacher
and after returning to the school had been asked to take a drugs test.

He said he had been smoking cannabis in the school holidays at New Year but
believed he was "clean". He said: "What I do in my own time should not
exclude me. I do not see why something I did in the holidays affects
something I do in school."