Javid describes his bullying torment
Video footage of attack on 15-year-old Syrian refugee brings back bad memories for Home Secretary
Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, yesterday told how the video of a 15-year-old Syrian refugee being bullied brought back memories of his plight when he was a schoolboy himself. An old classmate of Mr Javid in Bristol said his tormentor had been a boy called Terry Brine, who went on to serve in the Royal Navy and died in 2010. His widow said her late husband had himself been bullied because of his ginger hair. Mr Javid has said they met in later years and shook hands.
Daniel Capurro, Jack Hardy, Charles Hymas Mike Wright
AS SCHOOLBOYS in Bristol, their future paths would be very different. One became a banker before turning to politics and rising to become Home Secretary. The other served his country in the Navy during the Gulf War before running a plastering business.
Yesterday, their lives became entwined again when a former classmate revealed the Navy veteran had picked on Sajid Javid as a youth, then came to regret his behaviour and subsequently apologised to him.
Mr Javid told yesterday how the video of a 15-year-old Syrian refugee being bullied at a school in Huddersfield brought back memories of his plight when he joined Stockwell Hill comprehensive in Bristol in 1981.
“I saw the video like anyone else and part of me was clearly outraged, and to be frank it reminded me of an incident I had myself when I was 11 at school,” said Mr Javid, one of five sons of parents of Pakistani descent. “I hated it.”
Mr Javid described how, like the Syrian boy, he had been pushed to the ground and verbally abused by another pupil. He said: “How can this sort of thing still be going on?”
According to Lee Churchill, a then classmate of Mr Javid’s at Stockwell Hill, his nemesis was Terry Brine.
The bullying of the future cabinet minister began on their first day during assembly when the names of the new pupils were read out.
The name “Sajid Javid” elicited sniggers, said Mr Churchill, “and a child in front of me called out ‘Sajji soggy pants’, which gained a few more laughs”.
He added: “I know Terry used to say ‘P**i’ when he saw Sajid, but that was a bit of an ongoing joke, as he used to call us ‘Engis’ in response. It was unpleasant, but it was kind of a two-way thing.”
“[Sajid] was such a likeable person at school, but I think [racial abuse] was the thing that always got to him. I remember on a few occasions he got quite upset about people saying things.
“He wasn’t a very open person, but we had quite a close group of friends, and things were said occasionally that really got to him. I think it was just constant, especially when Terry saw him.”
It culminated in a playground confrontation, with “pushing and shoving” before a teacher intervened. “I remember an incident of being in the playground and a group of people sort of watching as Terry was pushing him. Terry might have thrown a punch at some point. If it had been a proper fight, Sajid wouldn’t have come out of it very well.
“It was fair play to Sajid for standing up to him – not many people did.”
Mr Brine, a father of three, died of cancer aged 40 in 2010. Yesterday his widow said she was unaware of the incident and said he had never spoken about it to her.
However, Rachel Flowers-brine said her late husband had told her that he too was a victim of bullying because of his ginger hair and small stature, but turned it back on others and had then been transformed by his time in the Navy, becoming a successful plasterer
‘The general population were outraged. That says something important about us as people and our values’
in Bristol and Spain.
“I know he was a bit of a git at school, but then he went to the Navy when he was about 18. He said it was probably the best thing he did, because it gave him authority and discipline and it sorted him out,” she said.
“I remember him saying he was bullied because he was small and ginger and he sort of reversed it on others. Everyone loved Terry, he was a family man, but always strong in what he believed – he was a bit of a character.”
Robert Brine, Terry’s older brother, said yesterday it was the first he or the family had heard that Mr Brine had had any dispute with the future Home Secretary.
He said: “Only Sajid would know, and Terry – and he can’t speak for himself. All I can say really about Terry is he served his country, he was in the Navy during the Gulf conflict. He was a very honourable guy as an adult, and he went far too soon.”
He also said his brother had himself been teased at school for his hair colour: “When he was young, like everybody else, you have playground fights or those incidents, and he’d be no different, I guess. Everyone used to rib him about [being ginger]. I wouldn’t say it made him a bad person or a racist in any shape or form.”
Mr Javid has described how he bumped into the boy decades later in Bristol, before he became a politician. They both recognised each other, and his former schoolmate apologised. “He put out his hand to shake. I put out my hand – it just felt natural – and he looked at me and he said, ‘I’m ever so sorry for what I said and what I did to you those many years ago. I’ve never forgotten it. I’m pleased I got this chance to see you again’,” said Mr Javid. “I said ‘thank you’ and we both walked off. It was a moving moment.” Mr Javid spoke yesterday of a similar catharsis over the Syrian refugee Jamal Hijazi, with the outpouring of public support for him and donations of more than £135,000.
“When that was on social media, the heartwarming bit was that so many people cared and they were outraged by it,” said Mr Javid.
“The people being outraged were not just Asians like me, or other ethnic minorities – the general population were outraged. And to me, that says something important about us as people and our values.” Mr Javid said he had written a note to Jamal, adding: “When the investigation is over, I’d like him to come see me with his family and have a cup of tea or something.”