Beating bullies

EVERYONE has a story from their schooldays of bullying. Whether they were the unfortunate victim, a by-stander or someone who tried to help, or even one of the aggressors, no one can claim to be unaware of the heartache and fear caused by such cruelty. Yet with each generation there are new tales of exams failed, lives wrecked and, occasionally and tragically, lives ended because of this plague.

It is alarming that despite changes to make it easier for children who have been targeted to speak out, and to make bullies see what they are doing wrong, some parts of Yorkshire are witnessessing more bullying than the rest of the country, with the singling out of disabled children an extra problem.

Urgent action is essential. With research showing that 53 per cent of Bradford children say they have been bullied in school – almost seven per cent higher than the national average – and disabled children being particularly vulnerable to abuse, there is much to discuss at a conference put on tomorrow by the city's safeguarding children board and the NSPCC.

Attitudes to people with disabilities will be high on the agenda. While society as a whole, as well as Parliament, has done much to ensure disabled people are given equal treatment, as well as providing certain extra help so they can fulfil their potential in education and in the workplace, young people are not always so enlightened.

Children with ill intentions seize on physical differences and magnify them as a way of boosting themselves and diminishing their victim.

It is deeply unpleasant but it can be tackled, by teaching that the contrasts that make someone stand out, such as having difficulty moving or speaking or being in a wheelchair, are simply skin deep.

Only by tackling bullies' flawed beliefs, as well as the problems in their own lives which can create an aggressive mindset, can we quash the scourge of bullying.