Background.
My son was bullied by a former friend for a few months in year 7. It went from small scale derogatory comments, criticism, and bizarre bouts of anger during online gaming to throwing stones, tripping up, shoving, name calling, playing 'adult' mobile phone content at him, and managing to get a lot of the year group to join in the pisstaking of a particular aspect of my son's appearance. A lot of it was happening at the bus stops (so outside of school), some of it online, some of it in school corridors and in lunch breaks (so out of sight of teachers of course!).
To begin with we stopped the online gaming and advised him to try some distance and avoidance but the other boy (and another boy) kept finding him wherever he went at lunchtimes for pisstaking and shoving. In addition, it was extra awkward because ds was getting a lift home from the bus stop with this other boy, and I was friends with the mum, so difficult for ds to avoid him and difficult to tackle the matter without causing problems (with hindsight, I wish I had but knew deep down she would absolutely not believe me, based on her personality and things she had said about her other children in the past). After a while we asked the year group tutor to have a chat with the boys and try some mediation. DS understood that the other boy did not want to be friends with him any more but felt he wasn't allowed to move on in peace. The tutor called Ds in and absed on what she heard then, instead of mediation, called in the other two boys and bollocked them. Not quite what we had in mind and the fallout was awful. The bullying got worse, especially at bus stops, the other boy told all their mutual friends that ds had lied and had actually been bullying him so everyone stopped talking to ds, and obviously the boy's mum would not talk with me and some mutual friends have blanked me ever since. The incidents at the bus stops were getting really worrying and I was getting scared for his safety. The other boy was seriously angry at being caught out and being used to having his own way, was obviously taking it out on ds. I arrrived to pick up ds from the bus stop one day and caught the brat throwing stones and calling names, all without realising he was in sight of a pub's CCTV camera!
We got ds a place at another school and he gradually came back to being his normal happy self, mature and confident, and has plenty of normal good friends.
Here's the twist. Shortly after getting him a new school place I was contacted by an older pupil at the old school with some mobile phone footage of a couple of the incidents at the bus stops. Not sure why they never passed it on to the school at the time, considering they must have been concerned enough to have filmed it discretely in the first place, but they wanted me to have it to give it to the school to help my son. But I didn't take it...I guess the whole thing had been so very upsetting, and my son by then had his place in a better school, that I wanted to put the whole thing behind us and move on. Not a day has gone past that I haven't wondered if it was the right thing. I feel like it was the right, morally correct thing to do, to take the high road. My son had not answered any questions from old friends about what happened, done an excellent job at being the better person, and I felt I had to do the same, and not carry the need for revenge forward with me. A few days ago we saw that boy at a community event, for the first time since it all happened. It brought it wll back, especially when my son was totally blanked by all his old friends, and this boy, along with another brat, kept staring at my son, sniggering behind their hands, and other behaviour quite unbecoming of 13 year olds.
So I know I am in a period of renewed anger at how nasty that former friend was, at how his parents refused to believe he did anything wrong (despite corroboration and confessions from his 'accomplices'!), and at how my son has been socially outcast in our village life for being a victim who talked...but I now really wish that mobile phone footage would turn up on facebook so that evidence of what really happened can be seen by everyone. Does this make me a bit evil?!