Mother of teenager with disabilities says she has forgiven bullies who walked on him in stream

GLACE BAY, N.S. — The mother of a Cape Breton teen with cerebral palsy says her son has forgiven a group of students who bullied him last week — telling him to lie in a shallow stream as other students walked over him.

But she said he is still afraid to return to his high school because he doesn’t feel safe.

In an interview Tuesday, Terri McEachern said her son, 14-yearold Brett Corbett, received an apology over the weekend from two of the students involved.

School administrators said Tuesday they wanted to assure parents and the community that they would “work with students, staff and parents to address this behaviour.”

The stream, known as BurrBank, is near Glace Bay High School where Corbett is a Grade 9 student.

The incident was recorded and ended up posted on Facebook, causing wide-spread concern and condemnation.

“To see the video of your kid laying there and kids mocking, ridiculing, it tore my heart out,” said McEachern, who added that she has been dealing with calls from media outlets as far away as Washington, D.C., and Africa since the story about her son broke.

McEachern said the family saw the video, but it didn’t become public until a girl posted it on social media to counter those who said the incident didn’t happen.

She said a boy and a girl who were involved came to her home this past weekend to apologize in person.

“He’s accepting of the apologies, he’s forgiving of them,” she said. “He was OK with them coming here and apologizing so I’m OK with that.”

An emotional McEachern said while it has been hard to deal with a situation she still can’t believe happened, she has to try to forgive as well.

“I don’t hold hate and resentment in my heart. It hurts, it was wrong, it’s unacceptable, but hate only grows, it’s a dark emotion.”