I launched this campaign to protect children from bullying after having sandpaper rubbed across my face when I was at school.

I’m now 25 years old but the memory of that vicious attack on a school bus remains fresh in my memory. I want no one else to have to endure the same traumatic experience.

My primary school days were bully-free but I started to be picked on at my secondary school in Porthmadog, North Wales, for no good reason I could think of other than being a conscientious pupil and a little chubby.

At first I was just called names, which I could laugh off, but then older boys started to trip me up in corridors and throw punches at me.

I tried to complain to teachers, but only one paid any attention and when she left I started to feel very isolated.

My parents had separated and I didn’t want to burden my mother with my problems, so I bottled them up inside instead.

Things came to a head in 1995 when I lost my grandmother, who I was very close to, before going back to school after the summer break.

I was on a bus heading home one day when another pupil I knew - and later discovered I was related to - suddenly attacked me with a sheet of sandpaper, scraping me across my cheeks. I didn’t dare fight back because my attacker was with friends and was showing off to them.

When I got home my mother was shocked by my bloodied appearance. She rang the boy's father, who apologised but the school didn’t want to know because the incident occurred off the premises.

I escaped permanent disfigurement but going back to school after such a shocking attack became a daily ordeal. I learned to turn the other cheek because any retaliation on my part would have made the situation worse, like a vicious circle with me in the middle.

My self -esteem plummeted and I started to comfort eating as an escape from what felt like a prison. At first my weight ballooned. When I was 15 my weight was about 15 stone.

I could not wait to leave school when I was 16 years old.

Going to a further education college was a blessed relief and in two years I acquired enough qualifications to do what I wanted to do.

I never forgot my bullying ordeal, though, and finally decided I had to come forward after reading about the tragic death of an eleven year -old boy who took a pill overdose at home following relentless bullying.

No youngster should be driven to such depths of despair that they commit suicide

Please DO your bit and sign the petition today.