Schoolgirl Gets Hurt In Racially Aggravated Attack, Relatives Demand Dismissal of Onlooking Teachers
On February 6th, a video surfaced online showing a group of white girls in Ashford, Surrey savagely attacking a lone Black girl. The victim, a 15-year-old student at Thomas Knyvett College, is assaulted while off-screen voices lead and encourage the violence.
Some children are seen on camera kicking, punching, and pulling the victim's hair. Adults, possibly family, are present and cheering on the participants. There were also bystanders watching from their cars. Peers from the same school were present, filming and even laughing at what they were witnessing.
At the very end, two teachers, one of whom is reported to be the school's headteacher, Richard Beeson, strolled over and said, "can we let go, please, thank you?" with no apparent sense of urgency. Despite provoking the victim to traumatic levels of violence, the group dispersed. The police have since revealed that the racist assault resulted in two victims, one of whom required medical attention.
Three children, ages 11 and 16, and two adults, ages 43 and 39, have been arrested on suspicion of attempted racially aggravated grievous bodily harm (GBH), Surrey Police reported. A girl of 15 is also a suspect in this case.
While the video has instantly galvanised support for a cause, police are asking that it be kept private. Due to the arrests, the video may now be deemed adverse evidence in court.
Sharing footage of racial violence with others is a powerful gesture of solidarity in the face of tragedy, a way to channel our collective outrage into bringing those responsible to justice. Unfortunately, this is triggering, upsetting content that may cause more harm than good in this particular situation.
The school claimed in a previous statement that "student safety is their paramount concern," however one of their pupils was brutally attacked just outside of school premises, and the teachers intervened much too late. As a result, concerns have been raised about the safety of other Black students at the school and in the neighbourhood.
Officials had previously called the situation outside Thomas Knyvett College "distressing" and asked that no videos of the incident be posted online.
"I was shocked to see some of the video footage of this fight and the level of violence from young people outside one of our local schools. Every school child should feel safe in the local community and not be the target of any kind of violence as they leave school premises. Surrey Police are now investigating this incident and gathering further evidence with the full cooperation of the school. There will be extra patrols in this local area for reassurance and to enable local people to speak with officers," Inspector Maxine Cilia commented.
The school's principal, Richard Beeson, released a statement on Twitter that read, "We can assure you that we are taking all necessary steps to ensure this isolated incident is dealt with and that student safety is our paramount concern."
A relative of the victim told the Mirror that her heart fell when she saw the horrible footage of the assault posted online and that she wants the employees at Thomas Knyvett College in Ashford, Surrey, to be fired.
Braids ripped from the girl's hair can be seen lying in the street in the video. In the words of the relative: "She’s 15. She's in her last year of school here and she was actually helping her friend."
"No one from the school brought her back to us. We had to go to her and get her home. They let her go to a friend's house and then from her friend's house she used her friend's phone to call us.
"She said 'nobody helped me, they were laughing at me. One of the teachers laughed at me with my braids on the floor'.
"She had nine braids pulled from her head from the roots and when we look, you can see the dots where they came off the scalp. Speaking about the girl's recovery, she added: "She was very lost. Very sad. I think her morale has been boosted because of people, she knows she's not alone."
"It's one of those things you when you see on social media just thinking it hurts you so bad. Even then, even if it's not on your doorstep, we still feel that same thing. It's distressing."
Now she is demanding action, saying: "I want them to get rid of those teachers (in the video) I want them to present us with their anti-racism policy."
On Wednesday afternoon, members of the community demonstrated outside the school.All too frequently, young Black children are the targets of racist acts. The Guardian claimed in 2021 that there had been at least 60,000 cases of racism in UK schools, but the real number is likely far higher because the government does not mandate schools to register racism attacks.
This attack at Thomas Knyvett College is yet another example of the failure to adequately protect young Black children in the wake of the cases of Child Q, a 15-year-old Black girl who was strip searched by two Met police officers, and Shukri Abdi, a school girl who drowned but whose death was not immediately treated as suspicious.