A MOTHER and daughter duo from Tavistock last Tuesday (February 25) visited Westminster as part of a campaign to demand new laws on bullying.

Julie and Abbigail Jillians went as part of the Safer Schools Campaign group which met with ministers and MPs to appeal for changes to school legislations, policies and procedures regarding how bullying is dealt with.

Julie joined the campaign after her daughter was bullied at a West Devon primary school for three years.

The law states that schools must have measures in place to prevent bullying in its policy but does not stipulate the incidents that need to be officially recorded.

Julie said it was because of the lack of measures in place at the school that resulted in Abbigail’s continued bullying.

Families on the campaign met with shadow secretary of state MP Angela Rayner and two MPs Sam Tarry and Ian Mearns.

Julie said: ‘Angela said that she would look into our concerns and took our paperwork — so we achieved what we wanted to. Over 650 MPs were invited by families as well as the campaign lead — around four confirmed and cancelled, one was a “no show”. It was a very emotional day and I’m so proud of the way Abbi has overcome being bullied.

‘Hundreds of thousands of children are bullied and it’s getting worse in primary schools. I want to help other children in schools to stop what happened to Abbi and other children.’

Proposed changes include: Schools must all follow a code of conduct for dealing with bullying and violence complaints; they must follow their written bullying policies; they must record all incidents of bullying and violence brought to their attention; all decisions must be appealable to at least one other independent body above the school and governors; details of outcomes of any bullying and violence complaints must be made available to the complainant from schools, authorities, inspection bodies and education departments.