David

Bullies set fire to fellow pupil's hair

David suffered such severe physical bullying at school that he regularly ended up in hospital receiving treatment for the injuries inflicted upon him by his bullies.

In a series of horrific attacks spanning a period of two and a half years and beginning when Tim was just 11, he had his arm broken, his hair set on fire and was thrown head first into a wheelie bin.

David said: “I had no idea why I was being bullied and I felt that the school wasn’t doing anything to help me.  The bullies were never properly punished and so the bullying just continued.”

The bullying started when David was in Year 7.  A couple of pupils began pushing him and hitting him in the corridor.  He told both his parents and teachers at the school, but the bullying increased, both in frequency and violence. Younger and physically smaller than his tormentors, David felt powerless to stop the assaults.

In a string of vicious incidents, David was stabbed with pens and was pushed down stairs. He had his hands and feet taped together, and had his body taped to a classroom door. Unfortunately, the bullying was not limited to physical attacks and David was subjected to being mugged, having his mobile phone stolen twice. Despite being taken out of lessons while at school and his parents arranging meetings with the Head teacher, the bullying continued.

David’s outraged father, John, said: ‘Nobody has put a stop to this bullying and it has become widespread at the school. It is unacceptable that a child can be badly injured by other pupils at school and no one prevents it from happening or punishes the culprits. It makes me so angry.’

Despite the Head teacher’s claims that bullying incidents were taken very seriously, a bullying culture appeared to spread in the school and David suffered random attacks by different pupils every day. Unfortunately, David was not the only pupil affected and others were targeted for physical beatings in the corridors. When David had his hair and scalp burnt by a home-made flame-thrower, another boy suffered the same ordeal but was too scared to speak out.

In December, the years of bullying finally came to a head.  In one final attack, David was picked up by the throat and thrown onto the floor, landing on his face.  He decided that he had had enough.  He had watched his attackers repeat the violent assault on other pupils, and realised that nothing would change unless he spoke out.

Distraught at seeing their son return home from school with severe injuries yet again, David’s irate parents contacted the school. The school downplayed the incident by expressing their regret that David was injured during the ‘joke’. After two and a half years of suffering, David’s parents were finally forced to withdraw their son from the school for fear that the violence there was out of control, and they informed the police.

Beatbullying contacted John and offered support for David. The charity provided David with the resources to draw up his own anti-bullying policy, and create his own solution to the problem.  In January, John and David presented the school with the anti-bullying material they had produced, and the school admitted their inadequacies. David returned to the school without incident for almost half a term, but the bullying has not completely stopped. John believes that the school must do more, or David and others, will continue to suffer, and he will have to take his son out fo the school again.