An Oxford teenager excluded from school after a violent game left a pupil injured has lost his legal bid to be reinstated.

The boy, identified only as S, was permanently excluded in May last year after another student suffered a fractured cheekbone during a game of 'mob football'.

Sitting at London's Court of Appeal yesterday, Lord Justice Brooke refused to grant him permission to appeal against a High Court ruling in January which upheld a decision by the Oxfordshire School Admission Appeals Panel.

In September the panel overturned the school's decision to exclude the boy -- but refused to reinstate him because of the distress and "psychological damage" it would cause the injured boy. The boy and the school cannot be identified for legal reasons.