DS threw bully’s phone in lake

[CandidBeaker]

DS, 13, and his friend were being bullied by some other children in the park yesterday and a girl was filming him having his books thrown on the floor so he grabbed the phone from her and threw it into the lake. She hit him and then they all ran over to the lake and DS and his friend came home.

I received an angry voicemail from her mum this morning demanding that I pay for a replacement. I was fuming. I’m not paying for a new phone when she was the one who caused it herself by joining in harassing my son. It’s called karma. If she thinks I’m buying a new one she can fuck off. AIBU?

My younger sister was bullied dreadfully both in person and on social media.
Then one day she walked home at lunch and hung herself. She never told any of us that people were harassing her.
Bullying has serious repercussions and even more serious consequences.
I doubt this girl was filming this episode of bullying so that she could show it to the authorities in defense of the victim - if that were the case, he wouldn’t have thrown her phone in the lake.
Which logically means she was filming and fully taking part in the bullying.
Bullying is a stupid, dangerous waste of time and life.

The only agreed fact is that your DS obtained and destroyed a girl's phone, of unknown value.

You and the mother seem to me both equally unreasonable, in each taking any decision at all, merely based only on their own dear child's version of the loss!

You need to investigate before anything else. You might sensibly do so jointly with the mother if possible.

(For example, it might turn out that...

• your DS might have been mistaken, the girl might have been filming the bullies to help your DS!
• The phone might have cost £1500!
• Your DS might have been bullying the girl!
• The "bullies" might have been helping an earlier victim of your DS's misbehaviour. *Etc, etc, etc,....

Hearing more than one side of a story before passing judgment is just basic common sense. For a start, you could

• ask DS to show you what the school chatter on the internet is.
• Put the mother's story version to your DS and judge his reaction.
• Suggest to DS that you both confront the girl and her mother, or both complain to the school, and judge those reactions too.
• Then decide if it might be time to support your DS; and/or challenge the bullies; and/or really get the school involved; and/or repay the girl's mother; and/or so on.

She was absolutely instrumental in bullying him.
Not only humiliating him at the time, as well as egging the ringleaders on (they're not exactly going to back down when being filmed by the people cheering them on. It's a form of peer pressure). But also the intention was to perpetuate the bullying afterwards by sharing footage of the incident with classmates.

I don't understand how so many posters are saying she was just a bystander.

Did the mother apologise for her daughter's awful behaviour? Maybe say you will be taking it further that she assaulted your son? I hope your son is okay. Whoever thinks it's acceptable to film bullying, which is awful in itself, makes me feel sick when these videos appear online.

Your son did the wrong thing for the right reason. Digital media doesn't go away, that video could haunt him for a long time. I don't blame him. I'd pay for a new phone (if I had really had to) and consider the cost a small payoff for what could have been a humiliating video doing the rounds.

Legally, the filming could be seen as incitement, with the wrecking of the books done as a performance for the camera, with the intention of keeping a record of the humiliation, and the implicit threat of showing it to others.

She didn't admit what she had done.

She probably felt her mother would be angry with her if she told her she had lost the phone so instead told her the boy had thrown it in the lake, with no context.

So pay bullies not to post humiliating videos? Fuck that. In for a penny in for a pound OP - don’t let them get a penny out of you, or an apology. You stand firm with your son.

I'm so sorry for your family and your poor sister.

DS did the right thing. The fact that someone can be a bystander and film speaks volumes about their values. Foul and disgusting, whether you throw the punch or record.

Also, what is with the girl hitting him? How is this girl some innocent party in this. Should she not be up for assault charges?

DS did what I would be so proud of my kid was being bullied.

Don’t pay for anything, keep the recording and talk to the school and the police.

Notice how the mum with the angry voice message obviously didn’t ask how DS is. Shows where her daughter learned her lack of empathy.

I hope DS and his friend is ok.

No, do not admit to even touching the phone.

One problem with telling the truth of the incident here - with an implicit appeal to a sensenof justice - is the assumption that this mother cares what her daughter did. That's not a given.

The other problematic element is that you should never admit fault. It's up to the accuser to prove an accusation.

"My son was verbally and physically assaulted at the park today, an attack that appeared to have been filmed by others. This has been reported to school and may also be taken to the police. I will not be responding further to any communication regarding this until all the legal channels have been exhausted.

Is there any evidence of your DS touching the phone? You know, apart from the word of a bunch of kids who were engaged in bullying him at the time?

If the answer is no then tell them all to piss off.

If the answer is yes then tell them you're happy not to pursue assault charges if they are happy to forget about the phone.

Throw the mother in the lake. She can then get the bloody thing herself.

I genuinely don't understand why more people pushing their phones into peoples faces don't get them slapped out of their hand.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Your son shouldn’t have taken and damaged someone else’s property.

I haven't read the whole thread, but it's tough tits really isn't it. I tell my son you're judged by the company you keep, in this instance, she was filming it all. She's a victim of her own crime I'd say.

I don't understand this either. When the phone is being used as a weapon - to inflict emotional violence on the victim by filming and humiliating them to the whole world with a video that will stay in the public domain forever and ever - if their weapon gets damaged when the victim fights back, well boohoohoo.

If this were purely physical violence and an attacker were trying to stab you and you managed to grab the knife off them and throw it somewhere where it would get destroyed, not a single person would be saying "But that knife could have been a very valuable antique family heirloom, so you're responsible for damaging his property and you really must buy him a new one".

And shame on everybody trying to use the purported bully's sex as some kind of mitigation for her actions - it's hugely patronising and deeply misogynistic to suggest that a 'poor little girl can't possibly be blamed for what she was doing wrong'. Would that be because she can't be as clever as a boy, or as skilled in understanding people's emotions and feelings, or will be just generally much more helpless and immature than the boys? Horrific 'reasoning'.

True, he could have lied. But if he were lying, why would he have admitted to randomly taking her phone and flinging it in the water in the first place? If you're already making up lies to get yourself out of any trouble, why not just say that she must have dropped it herself, as he never touched it?

I firmly disagree. If somebody is deliberately committing aggression or violence against you - be it physical, emotional or psychological - anything they have chosen to use as a weapon is simply collateral if it gets wrecked in any way.

The only tiny little thing that she had to do for her phone to not be damaged would have been for her to leave it in her bag and not decide to use it as a weapon in a bullying attack.

Do you also think that, when the police bash down the door of a known criminal in a dawn raid, they are at fault and that 'two wrongs don't make a right', so they were very bad for damaging the poor armed robber/drugs baron/paedophile's property?

The phone was used as a weapon to humiliate. Your son was brave and stood up for himself by acting in self-defense to get rid of the weapon!

By that reasoning, you shouldn't take a baseball bat that's being used to lay into a victim and put it well and truly out of the assailant's reach?

I'm a teacher and waste too much time trying to unravel nonsense like this.

I can tell you that the alleged aggressors will admit to knocking his books to the floor if this was witnessed, but say that this was retaliation because he did it to them yesterday, or he called them names, or he said something offensive first, or it's a long-running bit of fun that everyone does.

None of us know whether they are telling the truth or not.

But only one person threw an expensive item into water and damaged it beyond repair.