TEEN’S ORDEAL AT TROUBLED ISLAND SCHOOL
Bullies hounded Finlay,16, for months and filmed him being beaten.. his furious mum had to threaten the school with the police before they did anything
WHEN Finlay White was filmed being attacked by bullies, his mum was told the school may not be able to act because it happened outside the gates.
These shocking images show the 16-year-old trying to defend himself as he is surrounded and beaten by boys at a snack bar outside The Nicolson Institute on the Isle of Lewis.
We told yesterday how a whistleblower has issued a warning over the safety of scores of vulnerable pupils at the Stornoway school, which has been rocked by the suicides of two teenagers in the last year.
And more than 850 people have signed a petition calling for a tougher stance on bullying at the school.
Finlay was assaulted last year after a long-running bullying campaign at the hands of a group of peers. He insists he never received the support he was promised after the attack and believes his school’s lenient approach to bad behaviour and bullying is to blame for the abuse he suffered.
His mum Jacqueline says she reported the problems her son was having to guidance teachers on several occasions before the attack and claims she had to pressure the school into taking action over the video.
Finlay said: “If there wasn’t video evidence in my case, nothing would have happened at all. Unless it’s addressed now, nothing will change.
“The school really let them get away with everything and that’s what encourages them to get worse.
“There is a lack of discipline. The school don’t want to take responsibility and admit that there is a problem. It’s such a small community, they don’t want to cause upset. But that one more chance these bullies are given could be very consequential to the people they affect. The lack of discipline spurs them on.”
Finlay, from Luig, was a star pupil when he left his remote primary school of just 21 pupils to go to the 1500-pupil Nicolson Institute.
By S2, his grades were starting to suffer. He became more withdrawn and was getting into trouble. In 2016, he was being singled out by one boy and his gang of friends most days.
Finlay said: “He was intimidating me all the time and I was anxious about going to school because he would say stuff to me. I was feeling sick with anxiety all the time.
“I had done him loads of ‘favours’ to keep him at bay. He had a massive group around him and if you offended one of them, they all came for you. They would make me sing songs on the school bus and hit me if I didn’t. I knew something was coming.”
In early summer last year, the attack on Finlay was filmed and distributed on social media before being deleted.
Re-living the assault, the schoolboy said: “One of them shoved me from behind and I started choking on my chewing gum, then he threw a bagel in my face and started pushing me.
“I said I didn’t want to fight and he was calling me names. He said, ‘Are you going to grass if we batter you?’ I said I wouldn’t and it kicked off. There were about 20 people watching. I apologised to try and make them stop.”
When footage of the incident reached school chiefs, the boy who instigated the attack was suspended for two days. A pupil who threw punches at Finlay and another who kicked him were suspended for a day.
But that’s not where the abuse ended. Finlay continued to be targeted by the boy and his friends until they left school. He has since managed to get his grades back on track.
Finlay said: “The most bullies get is suspension for a couple of days or put into isolation. I asked every few weeks if there was news of my counselling and it just got forgotten about. They said I could see a mentor and nothing was ever finalised.”
“By fourth year, he was being physically intimidated. When the video was posted online, I had seen it by the time he got home from school.”
Jacqueline told school chiefs they had until end of the next day to punish the attackers or she’d go to police.
She added: “They came back and said they’d suspended the boys. There was zero support. They never followed through on one of their promises to try and make Finlay’s life better. I was a parent with a son experiencing violence and it was like I banging my head off a brick wall. Now the bullying has stopped, he is back getting As.”
When Director of Education Bernard Chisholm responded to the anti-bullying petition launched online recently, he asked for evidence of cases where he had not responded to concerned parents.
Findlay’s grandfather sent an email to Chisholm, raising concerns for Finlay following the attack. Chisholm responded saying he would “look into” the matter – but the grandad never received any further correspondence.
A spokesman for Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, the Western Isles Council, said the authority would not comment on cases relating to individual pupils.
He insisted fights happen “in many schools”, saying: “All incidents were addressed and appropriate action was taken.” He added: “We can say it would be the Director’s practice to act on any concerns raised with him.”
Jacqueline said: “Finlay went into The Nicolson as a grade-A student and with every passing year, his grades got worse. By third year, he was being bullied and ended up nearly going down a very bad route.