If there’s been one video on a phone, I’ll bet there’s plenty more phones with similar footage.

There’s a difference, I think, between kids scrapping and criminal assault. If the police had been involved every time there was an “assault” at my school, it’d have been a permanent job for a small team of officers. OTOH, a 15yo giving a presumably much smaller 13yo sufficient beating to almost hospitalise him is an entirely different situation. Not that I’m saying that the former is acceptable or ‘right,’ just that you’ve got to be realistic about it. I think in the OP’s case, I’d be taking advice from the school, and it sounds like the school want him to take it further.

As an aside, at school I was systematically bullied for about three years by a lad twice my size. I was only little, took the ‘ward off blows, don’t want to hurt anyone’ approach. It only finally stopped when something inside me snapped one day and I leathered the f’cker.

if two 15 year old lads attacked me, i’d contact the police. it’s the same thing.

Good point, well made.

I think in the OP’s case, I’d be taking advice from the school, and it sounds like the school want him to take it further…

… so they don’t have to.

The phone video will be on a dozens of pupils phones. Your lad will know the usual suspects who will have all forwarded it to their mates.
I am surprised at an unprovoked attack tho. There is normally some sort of reason , does the attacker have a sibling in your lads year? It only takes a simple comment or put down in class to have a knock on effect.
Try to get a copy of the vid , presure someone before the plod get involved and they really all do get deleted.
Its an unfortunate part of school life , and unless your lad hits back in self defence then it will happen again. There is also the problem with the bully now being able to control your son and demand money or goods with the veiled threat of violence to back him up.
Waterloo road bullying / violence not as bad as my school was . I am also informed that this is unfortunatly true of many schools today.

It’s an assault plain and simple and needs to involve the Police, that’s what they are there for…..for the school to say they will handle something of this nature is ridiculous, they are a school, NOT the police or a court.

God I …kin hate bullies and was small until I was 13, so I know what your son is probably worried about. Luckily? I also had a hell of a temper and a very short fuse and it only happened a couple of times……

DO NOT ever,ever,ever approach the ned.How do you think it would look? grown man with reason to dislike said ned confronts him,you would be the one in trouble.I hope you get a result with this.Good luck,and another point,spoil your boy,he will be really nervous just now with all this going on,and dreading Monday.

unfortunately the best thing to do in this case is contact the police, let them deal with it. If the world was a fair and balanced place your lad would get an opportunity to have the little scroat tied to a chair while he kicked seven shades of shit out of him.

But as I say, its not a fair world. I took a kicking when i was 17 that messed pretty badly with my head and stopped me going out for years. An unprovoked attack by a bunch of scumbags who took a dislike to my guns and roses t shirt. The mental scars took a lot longer to heal. The main scumbag got taken to court and fined £50 (in 1994)

On a lighter note, 3 of the others involved are now dead, 2 drugs overdoses and a car accident, karma sometimes does work

Never back down to bullies. Pester the Police and the heirachy in the school. This is what’s wrong with the system, too many people quite willing to let things pass over. Assault is assault do your best to get the little scrote punished correctly.
As a parent myself (to be fair he’s only 14 months) I would want to clobber any little git that attacked my offspring for a laugh.

Slit the little f***ers throat, one less ned in this world is a good thing.

Ideal solution yes, but unfortunately not a good idea.
I’d get the police involved, even though theres not that much they can, or will do, at least the little scrote will have a notch against his name. He could have stabbed, or slashed your lad, but hey, it’s just for a laugh!

Its only a matter of time before innocent law abiding people realise that this kind of behaviour is only going to get worse, unless we start fighting back. We’ll riot against the Poll tax, or the war in Afganistan, but we’re unwilling to do anything against the scum that rampage through our own street every night… it’ll come eventually.

Get the police involved.

Its the only way the bullies and school learns.

Also wakes the public and parents up to take action against this behaviour.

Report it to the Police if you have the full story and be careful they don’t gang on your son but doubt it now.

He’s 13. You can’t be there for him all the time, and he DOES need to stand on his own feet, now and in the future.

Got to the police. In the meantime, your boy needs to learn to box. Even a moderate amount of training will make him a harder target and thats really what its about – not being the weakest.

Its not fair, but its the reality.

There isn’t really a good answer, there are too many variables or unknowns.

However self defence is a good idea and is great for keeping fit, not boxing though. Too limited for real street fighting, tai boxing which uses a lot of knees and elbows and clinching or brazilain jujitsu for grapling and ground work.

A lot of fights end up on the ground, always go to be able to make someone submit, when you need to.

I would go for both tai boxing and some jujitsu or brazilian jujitsu.

Avoid semi contact fighting styles like karate once you get into the habit of pulling blows or half hitting, it’s ingrained and you do it without thinking.

What ever you decide good luck wwaswas these are dark times for our people and nothing can be more precious than your kids!

Also learn to be streetwise and avoid fights.

Been training in many martial arts over 20 yrs but Ju Jitsu street fighting and grappling was my favorite for the street but karate teaches you to walk away and ignore idiots.

You can probably recover the deleted file from the phone. Just as you can from a PC.
Get the police onto it. If nowt comes out, “talk” to the bully’s folks. If needed Ton will surely advise.

Of course involve the police. If it was anywhere other than school you wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Luke – I’m chainsaw trained with a saw. Get the address of the little fella and I’ll go and cut a new hole in their front door for them. Not sure it would help but it might put the fear of cr*p up them :O)

Sorry to hear this sort of tail. I’d go mad if anyone hit my lad.

Get the police involved as a minimum. The more this behave is left the more it will go on.

Tim

I’m an Assistant Principal at a large 11-16 school. My advice would be get the police involved. If they say its a school matter push them a little and they’ll pick it up and charge the lad.

The video would be helpful but witness accounts would be more than enough. The file can easily be recovered from the phone. To be honest it would have probably been sent to various other phones around the school within secs of it being filmed. It may or may not appear on youtube at some point.

All sound advice Kaesae, but we’re not looking to turn the lad into the Mean Machine, just a harder target so they go elsewhere.

Really sad to read this post, 10/15 times around the head- you never want to be hit like that- get it sorted and get the governors behind you, get the police and stand up for your son- no one else can!

Support your son- anyone having a thrashing like that deserves the full support of the people behind him, he can’t do it, you can.

I hope both your son and yourself get a successful resolution to this incident.

Again support your son, the damage an attack like this can have can last a long time, ask your sister about victims of violent crime!Imagine yourself receiving the same- it is the same!

A sad and distressing post, hope all works out well for you both.

Quick update – we went to the police station Saturday and the School Liason Officer is going to get in touch.

Talking to my sister it’s likely to end in a ‘reprimand’ (kind of ‘don’t do it again or else’ type thing) from the police if its his ‘first offence’. Which is fine if it works – we just want the kid not to do it again, not bring the full weight of the criminal justice system to bear. As the kid’s admitted it and statements have been made by all the witnesses to the school it’s likely that the video is irrelevant in any case.

Son’s fine – he was a bit sore round the side of his neck and doesn’t seem too bothered. He seemed more bothered that we’d banned him from msn for 24 hours to give things a bit of time to settle down…

re: causes – it wasn’t entirely random – a girl who the attacker fancied told him she preferred my son (who in turn told her he wasn’t interested which upset her) – the attacker thought he’d gain favour and lose a potential rival if he did what he did. Raging hormones and a complete lack of perspective seems to be the principle cause – I guess the kid learned that you deal with your problems through violence from someone at home though?

Anyway, half term this week so doubt much will happen in the short term.

We may look into self defence type stuff as well – at least so he can use ‘resonable force’ if a similar situation occurs again.

Hope it works out for you and your son.

On a general note WTF, when we were kids we never got involved with years above us and vice-versa, we were all too-focused on our year/immediate/balance etc. This particular lad must have a screw-loose. Well done for others trying to step in and help your lad though. Shows he is popular and other lads are willing to put themselves inline of fire even with an older lad 🙂

As for teachign your son to fight, teach him dirty, finger inthe eye, punch on the nose, hit the other’s balls, etc etc. Their is only one rule of street fight. If the other stands up after 5s you’re dead meet. In the meanwhile, try to dig deeper and find out what REALLY happened. Then get the school involved. Police got better things to do IMHO. But phone the school every day until you get to meet the head of school, the parents of the other kids and the kids. If this doesn’t work, you could alwasy write to your MP; the local rag and then maybe get a copper to have a chat with the parents and the kids.

EDIT I obviously meant “there is”

Raging hormones and a complete lack of perspective

Ah, the good old days…

Not that I ever beat anyone repeatedly about the head and neck but there’s a lot to be enjoyed in ‘raging hormones and a complete lack of perspective’

LOL at some of the fighting tit-bits going on in here. Lets face it, some kids like a scrap and some dont. Thats not condoning bullying, its just a fact of life that some kids attract bullying. Before anyone has a go, i was one of those kids. I was bullied because i had jug ears and was born in africa. I got called a Zambo every day of my school life. Thing is i never let it get to me. A bully can only be a bully if you are bothered about what they are saying. Physical is another issue but i was always very sporty so i sidestepped that because most of the bullies were actual team mates at some point or the other. My dad never let me get away with anything that was embarrassing. I had my ears pinned back at 14 and he sent me to school in what looked like a turban for 2 weeks and you can imagine the ribbing i got. Its called character building.

My own son is kinda like me. Not that big for his age and comes home from time to time complaining about someone or the other hitting him. 99% of it is schoolground stuff which within 1 week is turned 180dg and he is back playing with the other lad. I have however witness my son being bullied by a local lad who has 3years on him. Lad was shoving snow in my sons face and down his shirt. My son complained to me 3 times whilst i was witness to it. I told him to deal with it as i cant be running over every time it happened. The 4th time the other boy got 3 punches right in the face from my son and ended up on his bum crying. I carried on walking happy that my son knew when it was time to stick up for himself.

I dread the day i am in the op’s position but i dare say, just like my dad did, i will ened up on some blokes doorstep complaing or my door will be banged on by some other father. Its kids just finding their place.

Regardless of all of the above, this doesnt sound like schoolground bullying, it sounds like outright assault so good on him for getting the police involved.

So what happenned?