Whilst watching the BBC breakfast show this morning a story came up about a 6 year old girl, plus one other child, was being sexually assaulted and bullied on a daily basis whilst at school. The parents of the child made a complaint but were, as per usual, given the ‘brush off’ and nothing was to be or going to be done about it. This immediately brought back memories of MLA also being sexually assaulted by a couple of under 10 year children at one of his schools. Luckily for him the Head Teacher was off that day because she would have done nothing about it. The Depute Head, who was known to be in total opposition to the Head Teacher, was in charge that day and stamped on it immediately with calling in the parents and dishing out a 2 day effective immediately suspension. Unfortunately the parents were fully aware that the Head Teacher would cave in so phoned the school the next morning and made complaint about the suspension and the boys were in school that afternoon. But I believe the Depute had preempted this, or made a complaint later, and put in a serious complaint to the Council as when I mentioned this as one of the reasons to Home Education there was no shock regarding and the air of ‘we know’ was blatantly obvious. That Head also ‘retired’ within days of me withdrawing MLA. Coincidence? Probably not as there was previous case of an extremely serious sexual assault, nearly rape, being reported by the parent to the Council as the Head Teacher once again dismissed it in fact the perpetrator was given special favours whilst the victim was given totally the opposite treatment by this Head Teacher.
Now if this kind of behaviour was happening in the home and the teachers had gained knowledge of it a Child Protection Meeting would have immediately been called and the authorities on that parents doorstep within hours. So why is this different? Why did the school fail in it’s duty of care and why did they not call the Child Protection Team in? I will leave that to you answer but needless to say it can’t be swept under the carpet now!
Any way here’s the story. But don’t be under illusion that this is an isolated incident because it’s not, there is a reason BB and her friends wear shorts under their skirts and it’s not fashion. Yes there has always been a bit of skirt pulling but not on the degrading scale it is now. These days it’s more than skirt pulling it’s stripping and lewd acts particularly on very young children.
The serious case review process in Wales is to be reassessed after the “failure” of an inquiry into the abuse of a six-year-old girl by classmates.
The girl was routinely assaulted both physically and sexually by 23 pupils of her own age within school grounds.
But the school and local council said the children’s young ages and lack of evidence meant little could be done.
Children’s Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler told the BBC the inquiry into the case had been a “shocking failure”.
A serious case review published two years after allegations of abuse first emerged accepted that sexually harmful behaviour had taken place.
But said that with more than 20 children under the age of 10 involved it had been difficult to establish exactly what happened.
The school and the local education authority, neither of which can be named, said the fact that the children had all been under the age of criminal responsibility meant little action could be taken.
None of the children involved in the abuse were removed from school.
Legal action
The girl’s mother was horrified to discover her daughter had endured months of bullying and abuse in school after, she said, she had been warned about what was happening by another mother whose daughter was also being abused.
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 The bottom line is the family will never know what happened to their child  Keith Towler
Children’s Commissioner for Wales |
The woman said she would never forget the fear on her daughter’s face as she recounted what had been happening.
She said: “She was telling me things that I think every mother dreads to hear from their daughter. It was horrendous what she’d gone through.
“Every day she was being stripped. She was being physically and sexually abused every day. And every day she cried out for help and nobody every came.”
The mother moved her daughter to a school in another area but it was not until she took legal action that the local authority carried out a serious case review.
The child’s family say she was failed by the school and by the system which took so long for something to be done.
‘Shocking failure’
Mr Towler said teachers needed on-going training to better recognise such incidents and the serious case review system in Wales would be changed to help prevent similar failures in the future.
The incidents of assault and the subsequent investigation were initially brought to his attention by BBC Breakfast.
“This is a shocking failure and the bottom line is the family will never know what happened to their child,” Mr Towler told the programme.
“We are going to review the serious case review process in Wales to make sure they are much more timely published, within a year of incidents happening, so that we get really clear for everybody involved, what happened, why it happened and what we need to do to put things right.”
The local authority concerned told the BBC that it was confident the case review had been a robust one and said the school had received excellent inspections before and after the case.
But Perdeep Gill, a child protection consultant, told BBC Breakfast the executive summary of the review “lacked clarity” and was “full of holes”.
A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: “We cannot comment on individual cases however the Welsh assembly government takes its roles and responsibilities around the safeguarding of children very seriously.”
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