Pictured: The wooden cage in Austrian classroom used to lock up girl, 14, with learning difficulties

The 14-year-old was penned into the tiny make-shift jail at the request of the head teacher at the Austrian school.

Karl Schmidhuber, defended the schools decision to keep the girl in the four metre square wooden box.

The tiny wooden cage where school teachers kept Sandra

He claimed the girl, known only as Sandra, was violent and disruptive during lessons and that locking her up was the only solution.

Mr Schmidhuber runs a school for mentally and physically disabled children. The school's caretaker made the wooden cell.

"I understand the commotion but I don't know what else we should have done," he told the Daily Mirror.

The local council in the small town of Hartheim has banned the school from using the cage after they discovered what had been going on.

Mr Schmidhuber said that Sandra was impossible to control.

"Sandra cannot be calmed down.

"Pupils and teachers take antibiotics so their wounds from scratches and bites do not get infected," he added.

Prosecutors in Austria are thought to be examining whether any laws have been broken.