The abuse of a six-year-old at school should shame us all

Try as I might, I can’t rid myself of the disturbing image of the six-year-old girl who was repeatedly sexually assaulted in the playground by boys at her school.

This wasn’t a case of kiss-chase or the tiresome skirt-lifting familiar to those of us who grew up in the boys-will-be-boys era, when the options were to punch them in the windpipe or run away. Preferably both.

No, this poor mite, named Bella to protect her identity, was victimised, humiliated and repeatedly abused at a primary here in Britain, not in some backward developing nation where women’s rights are stymied and daughters treated as chattels.

How do we know this? Because Bella finally had the courage to tell her mother only when it hurt to sit down.

It’s a horrible detail, unspecific yet vivid; body parts she probably couldn’t even name were being grabbed, clawed and pawed at.

Six-year-olds are still babies. They believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny and the good in people.

Yet Bella’s mother and father have had to fight all the way, through the legal system, to have the trauma suffered by their shattered and frightened daughter recognised.

In court, they argued the school had failed to prevent the assaults, or to train staff to recognise warning signs.

Apparently, a member of staff had seen their daughter with her underwear partly removed, one of the boys standing behind her. Does any right thinking person really need training to scream blue murder at such an appalling, depraved sight?

To add insult to injury, in the following days and months, Bella’s parents found there was no help available for her – yet steps had been taken to support the boys. In what world does this sort of callousness represent humanity, much less justice?

The local authority has not admitted liability but has paid out a five-figure sum to help Bella now and in the future. Will it be enough to mend a broken little girl? We’d like to think so. But we all know the likelihood.