A MUM from Tavistock whose daughter was severely bullied at a West Devon primary school went to Westminster on Tuesday to demand new laws on bullying.

Julie Jillians said her daughter Abbigail, who was born with one hand, was bullied for three years and suffered verbal and physical abuse from other children. Julie said that her daughter’s personality changed and was becoming reclusive when she removed Abbigail from the school in 2018.

The law states that schools must have an anti-bullying policy but does not stipulate that incidents need to be officially recorded.

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

Julie is part of Safer Schools Campaign which is demanding for changes in the law. The campaign group includes more than 100 families from across the UK with more than 15 of those families having lost children to suicide who allege that in each case the loss of their child or the harm caused was a direct consequence of unresolved bullying complaints in the school.

The campaign group met with a number of ministers and MPs on Tuesday to hear its case that failings of schools and government complaint policies and procedures to deal adequately with bullying and violence concerns, has led to deaths, as well as children having been seriously harmed as a consequence.

They asked ministers and MPs to consider the campaign’s appeal for changes to legislation, policies and procedures to prevent it from happening to any other children and families in the future.

Julie and Abbigail both attended the meeting at Parliament to ensure complaints were ‘no longer ignored’.

‘Families have lost children and I could see Abbi going that way if we didn’t pull her out of the school.

‘It makes my blood boil how the school dealt with their bullying policy. Abbi was born with one hand making her different to others, which sadly made her an easy target of bullying. Abbi would come home with a slip saying she had an injury and no further explanation and it would be Abbi that told me someone had hurt her — I just felt like the school were trying to cover it up.

‘Abbi had been spat at, punched, kicked and the list goes on and the failure from the school during this was appalling, it was just one thing after another!’

Julie added: ‘I remember coming home and Abbi was watching tele and was sat on the armchair. She was there for an hour and I thought that she must be really engrossed into a programme. I came over and I asked: “Are you alright? What are you watching?” to which she replied “I don’t know” and I could just see her whole personality changing.

‘She didn’t want to play and I could see she was starting to suffer and so could my husband Tim and that’s when we decided to pull her out of the school. She couldn’t take anymore and to see a child who is happy go lucky to lose herself is so upsetting.’

It was due to what her daughter endured that prompted Julie to become involved with the campaign to help protect other children from bullying for the future.

‘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.

‘Nine-year-olds have committed suicide because of bullying or are on anti-depressants. Something seriously needs to change in the law to protect these children.’

Abbigail said she was ‘passionate’ about the campaign and was nervous but happy to talk about her experiences.

‘It’s important for her to do this and have her say and prevent others going through what she went through,’ said Julie. ‘I am very lucky we pulled Abbi out of the school when we did, who knows what would have happened.’

The proposed changes to laws and policies the group is calling for will ensure:

Schools must all follow a National Code of conduct/practice for dealing with bullying and violence complaints.

Schools must follow their written bullying policies by law.

Schools must record all incidents of bullying and violence brought to their attention.

All decisions in relation to bullying and violence complaints 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, local authorities, school inspection bodies and government education departments.