Names have been changed for obvious reasons.
I am not proud of my actions here, it was never about bullying it was about teaching a lesson.

Back when I was about 14 myself and a friend blackmailed another kid in our year, His Father was a deputy headmaster, during one assembly after catching some pupils smoking Mr Smith gave us a lecture to us about the dangers of smoking, smoking was banned in school etc. etc.

A couple of days after this assembly my friend and I noticed Sean Smith with several packs of fags (cartons of cigarettes) in his bag and in his blazer pocket, Bill and I talked it over for a few minutes before we decided we could get some money with this information.

After the weekend we cornered Sean, we told him what we knew even naming the brand as proof, he begged us not to say anything especially to his Dad and he was willing to do anything to keep us quiet, we told him he would have to pay us £15 each to keep quiet (£30 was a lot of money) weekly until the end of term or until we could think of something better, for our own amusement we kept a book with the payments although if anyone looked all they would have seen is dates with a tick by them.

A few weeks later others from our year grew suspicious at how all of a sudden the 3 of us had seemingly become best friends especially friends with the son of the deputy headmaster, we hadn't noticed how closely we were being watched. Terry noticed that Sean kept giving us money each week, he overhead Sean begging us to keep quiet about the fags.

It didn't take Terry and his mates to push us out of the market, they started to blackmail Sean however they took the piss, the demanded a total of £50 a week, Sean came to us and he was crying because there was no way he could pay us and the others.

Bill and I talked about it, I said to Bill how much money did he still have as I had all of my share, he had spent some but still had most of it, we decided to tell Sean we was sorry it was only meant as a joke, we paid him what money we had with Bill promising to pay back the rest as soon as he could.

Now to take care of Terry and his mates for taking the piss, because Sean was truly scared of these the school bullies and to be honest both Bill and I were a little scared as well, scared not only of the bullies but also scared if the deputy headmaster found out.
We advised Sean to confess to his Dad about him smoking this would stop the blackmail, he did and he also told his Dad about being blackmailed but luckily for us he kept our names out of it.

At assembly Mr Smith mentioned that it had come to his attention that a student or students had been blackmailing another student, this blackmailing stops now, and I wont shame those here now but you know who you are, We the school could get the police involved and you could end up with criminal records that could damage your future employment chances, We the school have decided to give you a chance to redeem yourselves, as long as you promise to return everything back there will be no need for the police, however there will still be punishment.

Immediately after the assembly everyone was looking at everyone else puzzled to what had happened, Terry and his mates came over to Bill and me, shitting themselves they said we are all in trouble, they didn't know we were already off the hook. They panicked and weren't seen for the rest of the day.

By the end of the week all money had been paid back, and the punishment? I think all things considered they got off very lightly, they had a weeks expulsion followed by two weeks detention. They to this day didn't realise we had not been punished. The strange thing is after this the 3 of us remained friends until we left school.