Parents are suing a special school after a BBC investigation uncovered CCTV footage showing autistic children being locked inside calming rooms and abused.

Ten families are claiming that their children – all of whom had learning disabilities or several mental disorders – were amongst those harmed by their treatment in the rooms.

A police investigation into the abuse, recorded inside the rooms at Whitefield special school in north London, ended two years ago without any charges.

The school is now run by a new trust which says the failings have led to “important learning”.

Many special schools use seclusion spaces such as calming rooms outside of classrooms to address sensory needs or challenging behaviour.

But the leaked footage obtained by the BBC showed children being shoved into padded rooms, thrown to the floor, restrained by the neck – or left alone, sitting in vomit.

One 12-year-old boy appeared in over 55 hours of CCTV footage filmed inside the rooms.

At the time, the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, said the use of the rooms was “horrifying”.

Leigh Day is now bringing a civil legal claim on behalf of 10 families against the trust which ran the school and the London borough of Waltham Forest.

The law firm says the use of the rooms was “barbaric”, according to its clients. The claim alleges that children were falsely imprisoned and their human rights were breached.

“What was done to these children was profoundly harmful, and its impact continues to be felt by families every day”, says Alison Millar, who is leading the case.

The CCTV obtained by the BBC had been recorded between 2014 and 2017 but only emerged in 2021.

Last month, a long-delayed review commissioned by Waltham Forest found that restraint and seclusion became “normalised” and a culture developed that allowed “pejorative views of non-compliant children”.

It added that parents were clear that the practices were “unimaginable” and “inhumane”.

The BBC has also found evidence of mistreatment in seclusion rooms at other schools across the UK.

CCTV from a different school showed a boy being “brutally” and “unlawfully” restrained, while elsewhere an autistic child was kept inside a cage.