Liz Carnell looks at the dangers of cyber bullying and suggests that the criminal justice system should tackle this immediately and prosecute bullies if required.
There's no hiding place from the school bully. Once the king of the playground, today's modern bully extends his campaign of terror through cyberspace into the victim's bedroom.
The last five years have seen an explosion in hi-tech bullying which started with silent anonymous phone calls, evolved into abusive text messages and from there into happy slapping and harassment on the internet, often by instant messaging.
But despite the sophistication of some of these methods, most bullying victims know exactly who is behind the abuse, it's rare for them to be vilified by total strangers.
Bullying Online has investigated and closed down a large number of offensive websites, many of them forums targeting named pupils at named schools, particularly those in the Hertfordshire and north London areas. Pupils have been using free webspace to settle scores, send death threats and invite others to post anonymous filth about other teenagers.
The effect of cyber bullying is serious. We've had children telling us they are suicidal, one teenager lost all his friends because abuse was posted using his name; threats are so frequent as to be the norm. Bullying Online has built good relationships with the American and Canadian owners of this free webspace and we can often cut the aggression short and get the sites shut down within hours.
It's time that schools and the police took this problem seriously. It's not good enough for schools to say that much of this abuse goes on off the premises so they don’t have to do anything about it. In 2004 the DfES issued guidance on exclusions saying: "For behaviour outside school but not on school business, a head teacher may exclude a pupil if there is a clear link between that behaviour and maintaining good behaviour and discipline among the pupil body as a whole."
Clearly, if pupils are ganging up on each other and sending threatening or offensive emails which have repercussions within school because they are part of an ongoing bullying campaign, then that should fall within the scope of the guidance.
Neither should pupils' emails be sacrosanct. Bullying Online doesn't understand why children should be afforded privacy to send obscene or abusive emails or post false and harassing material to the internet from school. Their parents won't have this privacy at work. Most employers warn that private emails can be read and schools should be reading what is sent out from their school email address in the same way.
Schools urgently need to incorporate hi-tech guidance into their anti-bullying policies and they should stop pupils who break the rules from using the internet.
Bullying Online has intervened in some of these abusive websites to explain the distressing effect that these postings have on those who receive them. This usually results in a flood of emails from victims and their parents asking for help to get the abuse removed.
If pupils don’t take the hint that these postings are not only distressing but also illegal because they constitute harassment, then the police need to investigate and prosecute those responsible.
We often refer parents to the police and yet I can't recall a single prosecution. It really isn't difficult for the police to investigate these cases if they're prepared to make inquiries at the mobile phone operator or internet service provider. Unfortunately, it isn't impressive when parents are interviewed by a police officer who has no knowledge of the internet and doesn't even know how to send an email.
Once word gets round a school that a pupil has had a computer seized as part of an investigation it may be a deterrent to other cyber bullies.
The school bully might think he’s anonymous, but the reality is that his electronic fingerprints are all over cyberspace and you don’t need to be Inspector Morse to track him down.
