A BOY who has been fighting for a place at a Faversham school's autism unit has decided he no longer wants to go there. Jonathan Green has told his parents he is terrified there would be bad feeling if he went to The Abbey, because he felt the school did not want him.

The 14-year-old, from Tunbury Avenue, Walderslade, Chatham, was allocated a place at the over-subscribed unit by an independent education tribunal. But the school refused to admit the teenager because the autistic unit, praised in its latest Ofsted report, has 16 pupils, the maximum number it says it can cope with.

Governors appealed to Secretary of State Estelle Morris to intervene. This she has yet to do, although her office has reiterated that the school must abide by the tribunal's decision.

Jonathan's father, Eliott, said: "Jonathan has pleaded with us not to send him to The Abbey. He is terrified of what could happen if he goes there. He is worried there would be bad feeling. He feels completely rejected. It would take a lot of reassurance from the school for him to change his mind."

Mr Green is planning to make a formal complaint of maladministration against the county council to the local government ombudsman and has already made an official complaint to council leader Sandy Bruce-Lockhart.

Mr Green said: "The Abbey School may have won the victory in terms of keeping Jonathan out, but I feel I have won the moral victory." Head teacher of The Abbey, Peter Walker, said the school's position had not changed, and he still intended to admit Jonathan as soon as there was a vacancy at the unit.