"Among ordinary Iraqis, the elder son of Saddam Hussein has acquired a fearsome reputation for torture and rape," the magazine says.

"But teacher Dinah Bentley, from Yorkshire in northern England, remembers a very different Uday. Back in the early 70s, while married to a Kurd, she taught English to the 11-year-old at a private school in Baghdad."

The magazine says that as Saddam Hussein, then second in command, "was already a powerful figure" at the time, "Uday arrived at school with bodyguards ... but she recalls a normal child who was bright, cheerful and responsive to discipline."

"He was always grinning and happy. As soon as they knew who he was the other children were a little bit wary, but he certainly wasnt a bully. People would like me to say that he had two heads and was an unbearable pupil. He wasnt."

Asked about Uday's current reputation, she said "It must have been around the time of the (1991) gulf war when there were stories in the papers, and I dont know how true they are, about his murderous ways.

"That did surprise me because he was never aggressive or a problem in class."

"I had a good relationship with him. He never tried to pull rank. He certainly never said to me Do you realize who I am?"

Asked how he fared in English, she added: "Not bad. And with a Yorkshire accent."

SPACE.WIRE