A Wishaw woman has voiced her disgust at bullies who subjected her 12-year-old granddaughter to a sickening attack on school grounds.
The Coltness High pupil was lured to the school’s football pitch outwith school hours earlier this month, after receiving a text message from another pupil.
Lanarkshire Live understands that the two are former friends who had a disagreement and had fallen out, but according to the girl’s gran the text message had indicated that they could meet to resolve matters and put their differences behind them.
But when the 12-year-old arrived at the school she was met by the other girl and a group of youths, before having objects thrown at her, being dragged to the ground by the hair and punched repeatedly as well as kicked.
Video footage has been circulating which was passed to Lanarkshire Live. It shows the youngster speaking to the other girl who is being goaded to attack her by others present. The victim repeatedly tries to back away from the group, who ensure she can’t leave the pitch by shutting the entrance gate and standing in front of it.
She is hit by plastic bottles and a young boy is seen trying to bring her to the ground with a “slide tackle” as a group pursues her around the pitch, while another girl wearing a red bubble jacket menacingly waves a glass bottle of Buckfast around her head. She also has her backpack pulled over her head on two occasions, so she is unable to see.
The young girl keeps backing off from the group who are encouraging the other girl to attack her, comments such as “f****** stomp her” and “just hit her” can clearly be heard in the footage.
Eventually, she is attacked and dragged to the ground but she fights back and when she seems to be getting the upper hand, the girl with the Buckfast bottle gets involved shouting, “Get f****** off her then”.
Another girl can later be heard shouting to the girl who was brandishing the bottle, “Get her on her knees”.
Family members claim that the girl was forced to apologise for having the audacity to fight back when she was attacked.
The girl’s mum was alerted to the videos by another concerned parent who was left shocked by the incident.
The S2 pupil’s disgusted family hope that by highlighting the issue it will prevent anything similar happening to anyone else’s child.
The girl’s gran said: “You can see from the footage she was forced to fight and didn’t want to. We have seven videos and in every one she is walking backwards. They lured her there on her own and she had to defend herself from getting her head kicked in. It’s really bad what they done to her.”
The victim has since returned to school and the family hope that she can put the matter behind her.
“It’s terrible that we are worrying about her while she is at school,” her gran added.
Coltness High School head teacher, John McGilp, said: “Anyone witnessing this footage will be utterly sickened. Bullying has no place within our school and we work hard to create a culture of tolerance and respect for others.
“Although this incident took place well after the school day had been concluded we have spoken to the pupils involved in the strongest possible terms and made it clear that this behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. We also phoned parents so that they were aware of this matter.”
Police in Wishaw say they are currently investigating an allegation of assault within the school pitch on September 2, and are exploring a number of lines of enquiry in relation to the incident while working alongside Coltness High.
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