‘A child is going to lose their life’: Sickening trend of children filming attacks on other kids
A dangerous craze where children are filmed being attacked by other kids at school could lead to a child being killed.
That’s the warning from the half-brother of a 13-year-old girl who was dragged to the ground by her hair and kicked in the head by other youngsters.
The victim was just leaving for home after school when she was attacked only metres from the gates.
A video online shared by children in Rochdale before Easter shows the assault.
What looks like around two dozen other children are gathered around baying and jeering. An adult witness told Sky News there were around 40 kids present at the attack which experts say is becoming a “sickening” and “growing” trend in Britain’s schools.
The motive for the attack was quite possibly the videos themselves – a moment of notoriety on social media, creating content to be shared and laughed about in private groups on Snapchat.
A fair number of the children present had their phones out filming. Many seemed to know the ambush was coming. At least one of those filming also joined in on the assault, kicking the victim while she was on the ground.
Even the victim had found out via social media that there was an attack planned.
It’s part of what the National Bullying Helpline told Sky News was an “escalating problem of children filming violence against other children then uploading to social media”.
Courageously, the 13-year-old girl who was pounced on just before the Easter holidays wanted to speak out about it – but we’ve agreed not to name her or show her face, even though she accepts everyone in her school knows what happened.
Sky’s Jason Farrell spoke to the 13-year-old victim
She described how she felt afterwards. “I had a black eye. My head hurt every time I spoke. I couldn’t laugh because my head hurt. I couldn’t move my neck. My back was sore. I have a scar on my knee that they cut open.
“I don’t really like walking around now where I know people from the school are going to be, because pretty much everyone in my school knows about it. And I’m kind of glad that I don’t have a phone because I feel like I’d just be getting messaged about it all the time.”
She no longer has a phone because her attackers stamped on it.
The girl’s half-brother, Billy, 44, says it is becoming a dangerous craze
Attacks ‘getting more vicious’
Billy, 44, the half-brother, and legal guardian of the victim says this is becoming a dangerous craze.
He told Sky News: “They pick on someone who’s normally quiet, somebody who doesn’t bother anybody, they’ll then use that person as a target to create this online content. And it’s getting more vicious as each attack comes.
“I don’t believe my sister has any long-running rivalries within the school. I believe this was created solely for the content of the internet.”
He added: “A child is going to lose their life from this craze. It’s happening all over the country.”
Christine Pratt, the founder of the National Bullying Helpline, said: “Increased calls to the National Bullying Helpline flag up this increasingly popular, but sickening, trend.
“This particular behaviour [filming abuse to upload to social media] is seen as ‘sport’ and amusement, often led by gangs and school bullies who seek power and attention. It is classic bullying.
“When it is posted ‘online’ the abuse takes a new form. The victim is further ridiculed. Once on social media, it is ‘out there’.
“We hear about this practice occurring most weeks. It is usually the parent who calls us. They often struggle to persuade a school to believe them and/or take it seriously, investigate or deal with the perpetrators.”
One head of school in a well-known private school in London recently sought advice from the helpline, after a filmed attack happened in the boy’s toilet and was observed by over 20 students.
Not one of the onlookers felt safe enough to report it at the time and it only came to light a month later. The headteacher introduced initiatives to unite the pupils and encourage ‘bystanders’ to feel comfortable enough to report future incidents.
For safeguarding reasons, we have decided not to name the school in Rochdale, near where the Easter attack happened, but parents have told Sky News there have been several similar incidents just at or near this one school.
One woman who walks past every day to collect her children from a nearby primary school said she had intervened in four similar attacks.
Another mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, shared with Sky News a video of her daughter being attacked in January by a group of girls on the school premises.
Prior to the attack, a phone camera is switched on and propped up, pointing in the direction of the teenager who is about to be punched. The girls can be heard plotting. “Can you see her?” “Are we doing it or not? Are we doing it outside or in here?” “Go on then, go on then.”
After a brief verbal assault from one girl, another punches her then pulls her to the ground by her hair.
Another mother at the same school, who didn’t want to be identified, told us last term her son was randomly attacked by more than a dozen children on the playing fields – and she feels the school is failing in its duty of care.
She said: “From them kids coming into them gates at 8.20, they’re there to safeguard our children and they’ve failed to do that.”
The headteacher of the school we’ve decided not to name told us: “These stories will, of course, concern families who are part of our school community. Mutual respect, positive behaviour, and high standards are central to everything we do.
“In cases where members of our school community fall short of the expectations of leadership, staff, pupils and their families, nationally guided procedures are followed.”
‘We take extremely seriously our duty of care’
The headteacher added: “The incidents referenced by Sky News are both subject to ongoing enquiries either by the school or a third party. As a result, we won’t be providing further comment on those at this time.
“We take extremely seriously our duty of care to our young people and our local community. As such, staff have a high visibility presence within the school grounds and the immediate vicinity of – before, during and after school.
“We have processes in place to ensure a robust response to disclosures made regarding the safety of students and our post-incident procedure includes the administration of first aid by trained members of staff.”
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said: “We would encourage anyone who is subject to offences on social media that encourages violence against another human being, to have the confidence to report them immediately to GMP via 101 or 999 in an emergency.
“Greater Manchester Police is committed to investigating each and every complaint received of this nature and bringing the perpetrators to justice, because those who are inciting violence through the use of social media, are committing crimes.”
Sky News understands the attack on the 13-year-old is now being investigated by the police. But the National Bullying Helpline says schools and authorities are failing to keep pace with this growing UK-wide problem.
UK
More prisoners are being transferred to less secure jails to tackle overcrowding crisis, Sky News understands
The prison service is starting to recategorise the security risk of offenders to ease capacity pressures, Sky News understands.
It involves lowering or reconsidering the threshold of certain offenders to move them from the closed prison estate (category A to C) to the open estate (category D) because there are more free cell spaces there.
Examples of this could include discounting adjudications – formal hearings when a prisoner is accused of breaking the rules – for certain offenders, so they don’t act as official reasons not to transport them to a lower-security jail.
Prisoners are also categorised according to an Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) status. There are different levels – basic, standard and enhanced – based on how they keep to the rules or display a commitment to rehabilitation.
Usually ‘enhanced’ prisoners take part in meaningful activity – employment and training – making them eligible among other factors, to be transferred to the open estate.
Insiders suggest this system in England and Wales is being rejigged so that greater numbers of ‘standard’ prisoners can transfer, whereas before it would more typically be those with ‘enhanced’ status.
Open prisons have minimal security and allow eligible prisoners to spend time on day release away from the prison on license conditions to carry out work or education.
The aim is to help reintegrate them back into society once they leave. As offenders near the end of their sentence, they are housed in open prisons.
Many of those released as part of the early release scheme in October after serving 40% of their sentence were freed from open prisons.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Overcrowding in UK prisons
They were the second tranche of offenders freed as part of this scheme, and had been sentenced to five years or more.
Despite early release measures, prisons are still battling a chronic overcrowding crisis. The male estate is almost full, operating at around 97% capacity.
Read more from Sky News:
Find out what it’s really like inside prison?
Prison recalls soar as justice system struggles
Campaigners demand IPP sentences are scrapped
Sky News understands there continue to be particular pinch points across the country.
Southwest England struggled over the weekend with three space-related ‘lockouts’ – which means prisoners are held in police suites or transferred to other jails because there is no space.
One inmate is believed to have been transported from Exeter to Cardiff.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The new government inherited a prison system on the point of collapse. We took the necessary action to stop our prisons from overflowing and to protect the public.
“This is not a new scheme. Only less-serious offenders who meet a strict criteria are eligible, and the Prison Service can exclude anyone who can’t be managed safely in a category D prison.”
UK
Prisoner driven to psychosis after stealing mobile phone unable to undergo health test ‘due to lack of staff’
A prisoner who has served 12 years in jail for stealing a mobile phone was unable to attend a psychiatric assessment because of a lack of staff, his family claims.
According to psychiatrists, Thomas White has developed psychosis as a direct result of being handed a controversial indefinite jail term called imprisonment for public protection (IPP), which was abolished in 2012.
His sister has been campaigning for over a year to have him transferred to a hospital, which would require him to receive sign-off from two separate psychiatrists.
Ms White said her brother, who experiences religious hallucinations, was placed in segregation and needed three prison staff to release him from his cell – but they were not available due to staff shortages.
Thomas White pictured with his sister Clara White and their mother Margaret at Manchester prison
Politics latest: PM ‘may have heeded warning’ from Trump’s victory
Sky News understands that Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary who introduced the IPP sentence but now campaigns for reform, has asked prisons minister Lord Timpson to investigate.
What are IPP sentences?
Thomas White, now aged 40, was one of more than 8,000 offenders who were given an IPP sentence – a type of open-ended prison sentence the courts could impose from 2005 until they were scrapped.
The sentence – which has been described as a form of “psychological torture” by human rights experts – was intended for serious violent and sexual offenders who posed a significant risk of serious harm to the public but whose crimes did not warrant a life term.
Although the government’s stated aim was public protection, concerns quickly grew that IPP sentences were being applied too broadly and catching more minor offenders, partly due to the fact that previous convictions were taken into account when determining whether someone posed a “significant risk”.
Thomas was sentenced to two years for stealing the mobile phone in a non-violent exchange back in 2012 – but because he had 16 previous convictions for theft and robberies, he was given an IPP sentence and has served 12 years.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What is an IPP sentence?
The coalition government scrapped the sentence in 2012, but the change was not applied retrospectively, meaning 2,852 prisoners remain behind bars – including 1,227 who have never been released.
The new government is under increasing pressure to act on the IPP crisis given they were introduced by Lord Blunkett – who has since said he feels “deep regret” about the way the sentence was used.
‘My brother is being seriously failed’
In an email to Lord Blunkett, seen by Sky News, Ms White said: “My brother had a psychiatric appointment on the 1 November to see if he could be admitted to an outside hospital as he has to have two signatures to be transferred to an outside hospital.
“The system is nothing but criminal – people like my brother are being seriously failed.
“We waited a long time to have Thomas assessed again by the psychiatrist. We more than likely won’t get the assessment again.”
Read more:
11 years for stealing a mobile phone: Inside the lives of IPP prisoners
The £1bn cost of keeping people in prison on indeterminate IPP sentences
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Inside the lives of IPP prisoners
James Frith, the Labour MP for Bury North, said: “Thomas’ case highlights why these sentences were abolished over a decade ago.
“Thomas’s indefinite imprisonment has had a hugely detrimental impact on his mental and physical wellbeing. Thomas should be a patient, not a prisoner.
“We know the prison system is underfunded and overcapacity, but this is no excuse for failing Thomas. I have been working with Clara, Thomas’ sister, and I have written to the Lord Chancellor to raise Thomas’s case and the wider issues of IPPs.
“Thomas has been denied appropriate assessment and care for too long, we will not give up this fight for what is right.”
The Ministry of Justice does not comment on individual medical cases.
It is understood Lord Timpson will respond to Lord Blunkett in due course.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports8 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway