Kelly’s Eye

IN the aftermath of the attack on a 15-year-old boy at a school in Huddersfield last week, ITV’s News At Ten presenter Julie Etchingham prefaced a report on the incident by saying it had caused people to ask what sort of country we are becoming.

Footage of the attack rightly caused outrage on social media. Further evidence then emerged of the teenager’s sister also being assaulted.

The police say a 16-year-old boy has been interviewed in connection with the filmed incident and would be charged with assault.

Bullying has always been one of the most repellent facts of life, from school to workplace, and over anything from ethnicity to your size or just the colour of your hair.

From what we have learnt so far of this episode, it seems that the school at the very least has some serious questions to answer about why it was not tackled much earlier. And yet, as the victim is already hopefully discovering, this is also the sort of country that raises £150,000 for him in donations over the space of a few days after the attack was publicised.

The sort of country in which the local Premier League club’s goalkeeper wants to show his support by inviting him to a match, while countless others rush to offer other forms of support and welcome.

That response shows why we must also maintain perspective. For as well as keeping the constant vigilance required to prevent such attacks, we should also avoid falling into the trap of living in a perpetual state of national reproach, as if there are racists lurking at every corner.

Making such blanket assertions is overwrought and counter-productive because it succeeds merely in magnifying division.

And because – thankfully – as the vast majority of us know from our everyday experiences, it isn’t true.