A brainy university student who was tormented by bullies at school for being a “geek” has had the last laugh – after being crowned a beauty queen champion.
Charlotte Peach, 20, suffered years of cruel taunts about her looks and straight A-Grades by bullies who teased her for being intelligent.
They also branded her “tree-trunk legs”, a “big-boobed bimbo” and a “Jordan wannabe” – because of her good looks and curvy figure.
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The abuse got so bad throughout her teenage years that police were called after cyber-bullies targeted her on Facebook and vandalised her parent’s home.
But she defiantly went on to achieve six A*s and 5 A’s at GCSE, and two A’s and a B at A-Level to get a place at the University of Birmingham.
Her glamorous mother Linda, 53, was also subjected to similar teenage anguish by jealous girls who teased her about her brains and beauty in the 70s.
Maths ace Charlotte followed in her mum’s footsteps when was named Miss Undergraduate – exactly 38 years since Linda was named Miss Pelsall in her home town in the West Midlands in 1975.
Charlotte said: “I never let the bullies get me down and luckily I’ve rose above it all.
“I’ve made some true friends for life since I joined uni – and I’ve finally been able to feel confident in myself.
“I’ve got my mum to thank for it, as we’ve both stayed pretty grounded and to a uncanny extent mirrored each others lives.
“The bullies called me things like ‘tree-trunk legs’ once they knew I didn’t like my legs.
“They called me Jordan because I used to wear short dresses and make-up, as well as the other obvious comparison which they drew.
“It go to the point where they egged my mum’s car and ripped up the flower bed, we had to get the police in and they asked whether we wanted to push harassment charges.
“But I just wanted them to stop.
“It was mostly online – they wouldn’t say anything to my face, they just pretended I was invisible and completely ignored me. It was a living hell.”
Both mother and daughter’s teenage years were tainted with anguish as they suffered cruelty at the hands of twisted bullies.
Charlotte spent her secondary school life at Chasetown Specialist Sports College shunned for being too intelligent and teased for taking part in public speaking debates and playing piano.
Her family were even forced to call police after her mum’s car was egged and the flower-beds outside the family home ripped up.
Single mum-of-two Linda, a bank worker, also suffered the same fate at the hands of teenage girls during her school-life at Pelsall Comprehensive during the 70s.
She added: “Charlotte didn’t fit into the crowd of the popular girls who dated the school football team but also wasn’t your traditional geeky pupil either.
“She was just in the middle and suffered for it.
“It’s easy to say as a mother they were jealous of her but it is plain to see that’s what it was.
“She got a whole deluge of abuse that just broke her heart. She actually believed she was fat and ugly.
“As a family it was a horrific time for us.
“We got to the point we didn’t want to go on holiday because we didn’t want to leave the house.
“I knew how she felt to an extent, although nowhere near as badly because I was teased for winning the beauty contest.
“People said ‘who do you think are?’ and would be pretty cruel to me. But I only did it to make up the numbers.
“But without mobile phones and Facebook, I was quite fortunate in comparison as it always stopped when I got home.”
Charlotte, who won a holiday to Ibiza as part of her beauty pageant victory, added: “At least we can both say now we’ve had the last laugh.”
