Schoolboy battered to brink of death with claw hammer in savage attack resembling Tarantino film

A gang battered a schoolboy to the brink of death with a claw hammer in a scene straight out of a Quentin Tarantino film, a court heard yesterday.

Henry Webster, 16, was struck with such force that an imprint of the hammer was left on his skull, fracturing it in three places.

The 6ft 2in rugby player, who needed emergency surgery, still feels the effects of the "savage beating" by 16 Asian youths, Bristol Crown Court was told.

Four teenagers - Wasif Khan, 18, Amjad Qazi, 19, and two boys aged 15 and 16, who cannot be named for legal reasons - deny charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

James Patrick, prosecuting, said: "To those who watched it, it made a sickening sight, the sort of violence you would expect to see in a Quentin Tarantino film - certainly not in a playground in a school."

The court heard how a fight "blew out of nothing" in January last year, after Henry ran into a group of Asian boys in a corridor at Ridgeway School in Wroughton, Swindon.

After a brief argument, he was asked to meet the 15-year- old defendant at the school tennis courts later that day.

Mr Patrick said: "It was to be a fair fight. A one- on- one - or so Henry thought.

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"But he had not reckoned on the fact it was not to be one-on-one - it was going to be significantly more."

The court heard how the defendant had texted or telephoned a group of friends from Swindon, who travelled to the 1,400-pupil school especially for the fight.

In a video interview filmed six days after the attack and shown to the jury yesterday, Henry told police he tried to walk away but the group ambushed him.

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"I stood around for a bit, then these men came through the gate and looked around," he said.

"[The 15-year-old] was pointing at me and saying "He's the one, he's the one". A man in a black jacket pushed me and, as I walked away, he started punching me.

"I heard screams, then I was punched in the back of my head. I was curled up on the floor but they repeatedly kept hitting me.

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"Then I felt the hammer hit the back of my head. I know it was a hammer because if it was a punch, your vision does not change.

"As I got hit, my vision turned to stars - it all separated, what I could see, because it was so powerful."

Mr Patrick said: "Amazingly, Henry remained conscious throughout but his injuries were described by paramedics as lifethreatening."

Witnesses to the assault saw his attackers run off, punching the air and shouting: "We've done it."

Doctors have told Henry he will never recover from the attack

Henry said: "The hammer had gone through my head, through my skull and into the fluid in my brain.

"I have been told I will never recover because the brain cells will not reform."

The trial continues.