Bullying victim speaks out as campaign backfires

A two-metre-tall (6ft 7in) rugby playing teenager yesterday revealed how he was forced to quit school after being picked on by classmates. Mathew Ridley, 15, spoke as it emerged that the government's anti-bullying campaign had run into difficulty, with pupils wearing wristbands to show their opposition to schoolyard intimidation being singled out as victims. Mathew, who weighs 114kg (18 stone), told the Guardian that he had suffered years of verbal and physical abuse at his school in Wiltshire. “Bullying is a very complicated thing and just because I am big people think 'how can he get bullied?' but it's not just about size,” he said.
“I was different and people had a go to try and prove they were hard. I didn't hit them back all the time because I didn't want to hurt them or get into trouble.” Mathew's parents withdrew him from Kingsdown school in Swindon last year. “I lost all my confidence. I couldn't speak to anyone when I met them, I just locked myself away. In the end, my mum and dad decided it wasn't worth sending me to school. It's been a big thing for me because I've missed out on my exams, but I've got my confidence back now and ideally I want to go to college and study there.”

He said more needed to be done to tackle bullying. “People get away with it because no one really talks about it that much. I reported it to teachers but nothing happened, maybe detention or something, but it didn't stop them.” Last night a spokeswoman for Kingsdown school said: “We always take cases of bullying seriously because it can have far-reaching consequences.” She added: “It would be extremely unfair for us to comment upon an individual case.” The government estimates that a third of secondary school pupils and a quarter of primary school children are bullied at some stage. Last month ministers launched the country's first anti-bullying week, handing out a quarter of a million blue wristbands to “give young people the opportunity to make a visible commitment that they are not prepared to tolerate bullying and will stand by their friends”. But yesterday it emerged that children wearing the bands were being victimised. Julie Oakley, the founder of Bullywatch, which supports families of the victims of bullying, said: “Kids who wear the wristbands have become natural targets. It's totally sick that something designed to help fight bullying could be used in this way — it completely defeats the object.” Yesterday, pupils writing on the BBC's Newsround website agreed that the scheme had backfired. Rosie, 13, from London, said: “Ugh ... I'm sorry, but in one school near me, it's made it a whole lot worse. Bullies are stupid, everyone knows that, and so they came up with a stupid idea. “They basically thought, 'Hey! Everyone who's wearing a wristband must be scared of bullying!' So they decided to bully the people wearing wristbands.”

Last night Mathew said he welcomed the government's attempt to tackle bullying but insisted more had to be done to punish those responsible.

Matthew Taylor
9 December 2004

http://education.guardian.co.uk/bullying/story/0,15408,1369581,00.html

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