?Coroner Faith Marshall-Harris pleaded with primary school students to stay clear of bullying yesterday, warning that they could end up before the courts.
Addressing awardees of the Pyschiatric Mental Health spelling competition, Marshall-Harris said her remarks were not to scare students, but to alert them to the worrying trend of bullying the courts had been seeing.
She urged the students to be proactive and be part of any form of bullying.
Winners of the competition, Hillaby Turner’s Hall Primary School, second-placed West Terrace, third-placed Cuthbert Moore Primary and other awardees listened intently at the Prince Cave Hall auditorium as Marshall-Harris spoke on the theme, Bullying in our School, a Reality, a Threat to our Children’s Future.
The coroner who told the students of a feud between two girls that had been going on for two years and became so serious that one of them brought to school a knife and stabbed another.
That landed them before the courts.
She said the sordid ordeal started on Facebook, where the girls posted insulting materials about other girls causing the situation to spiral out of control.
Teachers and students listened intently as she told of cases of “bad boys and bad girls” roaming the schools and victimizing others, some even taking to school weapons; school gangs who gathered in toilets and pounced on their prey; and those in fear who retaliated and landing themselves before the court system.
Report it
“You should never be a bully, you should not sit and be bullied nor should you watch others being bullied without reporting it to an adult,” she advised.
Marshall-Harris said the unfortunate thing was that most of the time it was the victims who were ending up before the courts “after retaliation”.
She said from listening to the cases, it was clear that those appearing had been “bullied non-stop” or taunted and teased, until they could take it no more.
She revealed too that most admitted they had complained to teachers about the situation and reported “nothing had been done” hence their retaliation.
“Bullies are people who lack self-esteem and prey on others but I urge you to speak out to your classmates when you see bullying or at least inform an adult about it when seeing it done to other children,” she added.
The Psychiatric Mental Health Spelling Competition offered students the chance to learn more about the role of community health officers, how they dealt with mental health patients and even how they helped them to reintegrate into the society, while allowing them the chance to use their spelling skills. (CT)
