Autism expert Bernard Allan said Teresa McCarthy would have been well aware of the situation when she took up the post at Drummond School, which has a relatively low number of incidents compared to other special needs schools across the country.

Mrs McCarthy claims the council failed to protect her after she was the victim of a series of attacks by a 13-year-old autistic boy in 2001 and is seeking damages and compensation, despite being given training, including how to use preventative and calming measures if a child became unruly, before the first attack.

The 52-year-old teacher quit her teaching job at the Inverness school because she became stressed and depressed following four separate attacks, which involved punching and hair pulling.

At a civil hearing, which started in October and resumed in Inverness Sheriff Court this week, Mr Allan, who has more than 16 years of experience of children with special needs, said they were more likely than most to exhibit challenging behaviour.

"Pupils in special needs schools do present some risk to staff and it is my view that staff who work in these schools are aware of what they are getting into," he said.

Sheriff Alan Miller previously heard from Mrs McCarthy's former colleague Karen Mulvey, an auxiliary, who said attacks on staff by pupils were common at the additional needs school, but training to deal with children with profound autism had never been provided by the local authority.

Dr Peter Carr, a New Craigs Hospital psychologist, also criticised the school's instructions to staff on how to eliminate any triggers which could set off unruly behaviour and said it has placed staff under strain.

Teresa McCarthy is suing Highland Council for £250,000.

But Elizabeth Taylor, a Highland Council development officer for special educational needs at the time, showed Sheriff Miller documentation to prove that Mrs McCarthy had not only gone through CALM (Crisis, Aggression, Limitation and Management) training in June but had passed, unlike two of her colleagues who had failed.

Mr Allan, the former head teacher of a special needs school, told the court the objective of CALM training was to prepare all staff — eteachers, auxiliaries, janitors and cleaners — on how to cope with aggressive children.

"A school I used to be responsible for was a unit for 26 primary-aged youngsters and there were 107 incidents recorded in a period of about 18 months," said Mr Allan.

"To put things into context, if you multiply the incident figures from Drummond School, it still falls relatively low compared to the school I was responsible for, which was regarded as a good school."

He said Drummond School recorded 29 pupil incidents in 2001 and inspection reports showed teachers had been made aware of how to deal with unruly pupils and formal measures were put in place.

The case continues.

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