Boys questioned over dead girl's indecent photos

Pupils at one of Scotland's most prestigious private schools were being questioned by police yesterday after claims that a schoolgirl committed suicide after they took indecent photographs of her and posted them by e-mail.

Amel Guedroudj hanged herself six weeks after her partially clothed body was photographed at a drunken party attended by senior boys from the exclusive £12,000-a-year Edinburgh Academy.

Her parents told police the pictures were taken while she was unconscious and posted on a school noticeboard by the boys who also e-mailed them to friends. The 16-year-old's body was found in the bathroom of her French-Algerian family's Georgian townhouse in Edinburgh in January.

Amel, a model pupil at the city's £2,000-a-term St Margaret's School and a member of the Scottish junior judo squad, was described by friends as a, "beautiful, very outgoing girl who liked to socialise quite a lot". Her mother, Fazia, said she changed almost overnight after the house party last November.

The parents said Amel, their youngest child, had been driven to despair and suicide by the humiliation of knowing that semi-naked pictures of herhad been circulated.

For weeks after the party Amel, a fluent French and Spanish speaker, appeared to lose all confidence and wept uncontrollably at what she perceived to be a betrayal by her "friends". Four days into the new year her elder sister Sabrina, 18, found her in the bathroom. Amel survived for three days on a life-support machine until her family agreed to it being switched off.

Yesterday a spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Police said they were investigating the photograph claims but said it was too early to comment on any suggestions she had been indecently assaulted.

Mrs Guedroudj and her husband, Abdelhamid, an oil consultant, said they were disappointed by the academy for failing to discipline the alleged culprits. They have removed their son Redha, 13, from the school to protest at what they believe is a "cover-up".

"We did establish that a photograph was taken and posted on the noticeboard in the senior common room," John Light, rector of Edinburgh Academy, said yesterday. "But we have not seen the picture, despite inquiries.

"It would be quite wrong for a school to take disciplinary action which pre-empts the outcome of these investigations."