A CLEANER has quit a new £30m school after accusing pupils of `wanton vandalism and criminal damage'.

Malcolm McCabe said he felt he had no option but to walk out on his £6-an-hour job at Failsworth School, Oldham, after revealing a catalogue of incidents since it opened four months ago.

He collected a dossier of disruption which included toilets deliberately broken to cause floods, tissue paper piled up and set alight, lockers broken into and used as litter bins, chewing gum strewn throughout the school and damage to radiators and walls.

Mr McCabe was so appalled at how pupils were treating the state-of-the-art building that he collected photographic evidence of the damage.

And one governor has now called for an investigation into the claims.

Complaints

Mr McCabe said he quit after complaints about the damage to bosses - Kier Management Services and Kier Build - were ignored.

Retired engineer Mr McCabe, 65, said: "It is a beautiful building and a credit to the borough. It was paid for, in part, by taxpayers' money, and it is being systematically destroyed.

"No sooner had the children walked through the doors than some of them started to destroy the place.

"I was paid to clean for four hours but it was taking a long time because of the state of it. A colleague said this was par for the course in a school, but I couldn't accept that. It's wanton vandalism and criminal damage."

Nothing changed

After several weeks of reporting damage, Mr McCabe said nothing changed and claims other cleaners refused to work in protest. Failsworth School, along with Radclyffe School, was opened as part of a 25-year, £97m Private Finance Initiative involving Oldham Council and Academy Services Oldham Ltd.

Pupils and staff were said to be `overawed' by the school, which resembles a high-class business centre, when it first opened.

Barbara Dawson, a school governor, said she was shocked by Mr McCabe's evidence and called for an investigation.

"When we moved into the school pupils subscribed to a new code of conduct. The idea that some are willing to trash it doesn't sit well with me at all. We must find out who is responsible."

John Johnson, chairman of governors, said: "I'm not making excuses and I'm not saying that all 1,500 pupils at the school are angels, but if you get a small minority that don't act responsibly they can cause quite a lot of mess."