13 yr old daughter threatened

[Jabbie2]

My DD was threatened by a 16 yr old girl on Friday.She was made to get down on her knees and beg forgiveness to this other girl(her age) that she has been having trouble with.Initially my DD said no, well ,she said no several times then this bigger girl got in her face and said "if you don't get down on your knees I'll ff'ing punch you in the face" .This was in front of a crowd of people and someone has filmed it on their phone and put it on FB.Both myself and DD have requested it be taken off but it is still there.I wanted to keep pestering them with requests but you can only report it the once.You can't see DD's face, it's all really jumpy, you can hear the girl she has been having trouble with say, "get down on your knees" , you can hear DD say "no" You can hear the much older girl threaten her but you can't see her.You are all probably going to say, take it to the police but we know no-one will be a witness, some because this older girl has said that if they say anything she will come after them and some because they don't care, they saw it as funny.

The HOY at DD's school did say that if the girl she has been having trouble with ,comes near her, then to come and tell them but if we/she does this, she will get this older girl involved and she will come after her again.We are not afraid of girl no.1 and she knows this that is why she has got others involved.We don't want it to escalate but at the same time we don't want this bully to get away with it.Even though DD was really humiliated and the most scared she has ever been, she is very slim and these girls are big, the support she has had from her friends has been fantastic and girl no.1 has not succeeded in bringing her down as everyone is saying how out of order she has been to involve a much bigger, older girl and that DD had no option but to get down on her knees and say sorry.

What are my options? What would you do?

DD, is now no fussed and wants us to leave it all alone.

Bloody hell. I'd be furious. I would also be asking the school to take this a bit more seiously.

I'd take the video to the police...

Police, in a second. You don't need witnesses, its on FB which is in the public domain.

Police in a second. You don't need to take action if dd is not bothered but get the video logged in case anything happens again, if there is a second incident you have proof of harassement.

Police....now.
My DD was cyberbullied although no physical acts like this.
They don't need witnessess, the video is all the evidence they need.
The Police were fantastic, they came round the same day, took all the details, they were sympathetic and gave good advice.
They spoke to the other child and her family, which in our case was enough for it to stop but your situation is different.
Afterwards the Police told us everything had done and supported DD every step of the way.

This is awful, I'm so sorry this has happened to your DD, you and your family.
You may find a few sessions of counselling for your DD will help later on.

WHatever next, your poor dd , I would take the advice of the others as who knows what this bully will do next.

My god daughter best friend commited suicide two weeks ago due to cyber bullying, do not mess around, the police will be able to trac who put the video on there. people like this need to be stopped. you must report the incident and i would also tell the school you will go to offsted if they don;t deal with it.

Thanks everyone for your advice.I am going in to see the HOY after school today.I would have liked to have gone in yesterday but wasn't able as work commitments prevented this.DD got upset in school yesterday as she had heard it was being shared in the year above and she got really stressed and broke down in tears.She has told the HOY so he knows why I am going in.I have told her not to go round telling people we are going in as I don't want it getting back to girl no.1.DD is still really scared that the thug girl might come after her.

Glad you aree seeing HOY, but still go to the police.

Hello, I started a similar thread yesterday about a video on you tube. I went to the police and they are charging the boy is question. They take things like this seriously. My DD's school, not so much.

Make sure you have all the relevant evidence though.

I feel for you and your dd, I know exactly what you are going through. I'm off the school this morning to make sure this boy is keep well away from my dd.

OP, you need to copy the youtube video today, before it gets removed: Use this free download software.

Take it to the police, take it to the head teacher (dont bother with the HOY) and tell them that you have reported this to the police.

write to the chair of governors and explain what has happened and how you are underwhelmed by the schools response.

The meeting with the HOY was disappointing.He referred me to the local police station.Myself and DD went down there this evening.They were very, very sympathetic.I liked the way the police officer or whatever she was (?) asked my DD what she wanted to do and she said simply "for it to stop" , which breaks my heart.We weren't going to mention names at this stage it was just a what can we do thing but she asked what school she went to , the name of bully girl no.1, whether we could approach/speak to the mum(been there , not a chance) , if we knew the name of bully girl no.2 (didn't realise but DD can find out) and she said that really we SHOULD go back to the school, that they have more responsibility, but I said but they referred me to you and here we are? She basically said that if we want to make it a crime report , then that's serious and at this stage it could make things worse.She said we could get in touch with our ward Safer neighbourhood team who would pay us a visit and if we wanted we could ask them to visit the bullies at their home addresses and issue what they call a Harrassment Warning which sounds like a possibility.

She was very nice, she listened, she took us seriously which is what others on here have said, I think she was trying to tell us to take it further but ultimately it is our decision.She was asking lots of questions about how it was making us feel and how it was affecting us, in particular(espescially DD)I now feel like I am doing something, I don't feel so impotent, we just need to work out the next steps.What I did find concerning was that they can only get directly involved if any of them physically touches DD, to me that's going too far, but she did say to phone 999 straight away.We talked about keeping DD safe, there is a real threat that the 16 yr old may come up the school after her but we have all said , go back into school and wait.This is so stressful, how can a person think it is o.k to threaten and behave this way?
DD said her video was being shared amongst the next year up, the olders and they were laughing and saying it was "peak".Her peers(the nasty ones) are saying she got down on her knees like a dog, they are teasing her, she feels this is going to take a long time to try and live down.

Help me with my violent urges towards this girl, her mum, and the 16 yr old who is just looking for an excuse to look big.

No advice, just an observation. You are a much better person than me. I'd have acted on my violent urges I am afraid.
Your DD is a lucky girl to have you as her mum.

Thanks ripsishere, it hasn't been easy but I abhor violence.I just want to keep her safe and for her to see that we are trying to do something.I can't reason with the mum I know I WOULD get angry with her, she ffs and blinds all the time and gets aggressive quite quickly.We wanted to go up youthclub and just stand there watching older thug and DH wanted to take photo's of her to unnerve her.Then we wanted to approach them both individually and say we have had advice on what has happened and basically say, if you don't come near DD again we won't do anything. . . if you do , we will get you served with a harrassment warning etc but that could be viewed as a threat I guess.Girl no.1 probably thinks she has got away with it as no-one has been round to her house, but believe me, she hasn't.

I know how tempting it must be for you to approach this girl but please, please don't do anything - you will have a much stronger case if you don't get into a 'tit for tat' situation. I'm glad the police were so supportive and I would definitely get them to offer a harrassment warning - please don't do this yourself.

Have you recorded the youtube video as evidence?

Put it on a disc, and take it to the heads office. Ask her to justify how this is NOT bullying and intimidation, and demand to know what they are going to do about it.

Get a copy of the schools bullying policy.

Write to the chair of governors and the LEA, enclosing a disc with the incident on it.

Follow up on the harrassment order. It will take a foolish bully indeed to cross the line once the police are involved.

I agree Wilding totally.Both myself and DH have talked at length about what we would LIKE to do but we realise we can't or shouldn't do any of it.DD hasn't left my side and even came and slept on the edge of our bed last night! She's 13.

Hattifatner, the vid is on FB but the police have recommended we get a copy.She said it could help us if things develop further(hopefully they won't) and she said it would be a stupid person who tries to come after her.

jabbie, use this link for step by step instructions on downloading facebook videos onto your PC

Jabbie2, I don't know if you've seen this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1497717-DDs-ex-boyfriend-making-youtube-videos-about-her?msgid=32424265

That situation is slightly different but similar enough that you may get some ideas about points to raise with both the school and the police from reading it.

Thank you Iamthezombie, I have read that thread.

After a lot of discussion, DD didn't want to go down the Harrassment warning route as she was afraid of repercussions.We are respecting her wishes but are worried as the older girl has been seen around the school x2 now in the past week.Younger bully has not been back to school and we think she may not come back.She has a lot of supporters oddly enough from boys in their yr group for what she has done and it is from these boys that DD is afraid of the backlash.She is getting teased on an almost daily basis and yesterday one of her friends was actually assaulted by younger bully walking back home after walking DD home as DD didn't feel safe.Younger bully told DD's friend to go get DD as she wanted to "get her" but friend refused , then later younger bully was seen standing across the road from our house.DD was indoors alone absolutely petrified.I was hoping things would die down but I don't think they will without some sort of police intervention but I am worried as a harrassment warning is quite serious isn't it? and I would hate for them to counter claim IYSWIM, although I can't see how any of what DD has done could be seen as harrassment.

The risk of a counter-claim is one of the main reasons I'd get the harassment order issued, if I were you. It sounds like both girls need to be visited and issued with orders now - the older one because of the incident that was videoed, and the younger one if she has started to hang around your house. Make it all official and out in the open, and other kids will see any counter-claims for what they are. Plus involving the police will focus the school's attention a little: you can then legitimately ask for the bullies to be kept away from your daughter, and expect it to be done.

The only reason I might not involve the police is if I suspected there was more to this than met the eye - if I suspected my own child had been involved in some bullying and this incident was in fact 'defence' (you said in your OP that your daughter was told to 'beg forgiveness'... so I'd ask, for what?)... Even then, I might be tempted to involve the police, because if my own child was bullying, I'd want to nip it in the bud, and might consider that a harassment warning would be useful and effective way of doing this, showing them how much I disapproved of bullying.

But assuming you've already ruled that out...

Your poor daughter sounds like she's really frightened by this. :( She needs to do something to make her feel like she has some control over what is happening to her. I understand why she fears repercussions - but bullies tend to target perceived weakness, and are generally cowards themselves. They are much more likely to act again if they think your daughter is afraid and she/you won't do anything. Do what you can to boost your daughter's self-confidence... Self defence classes, perhaps?

I see where you are coming from flow4, totally. DD, to my knowledge said something initially to 2 girls that younger bully had been slagging off.This was after, younger bully told another girl what DD had said about her to this girl's face.DD just saw red and retaliated by snitching on bully 1 to these 2 girls.This resulted in one of the 2 girls having a proper physical fight in the street with younger bully.Because younger bully is a heavy set girl she basically 'won' that fight but hasn't forgiven DD for causing it.I know it isn't nice behaviour, I keep having the discussion with DD about not saying unkind things about people because a) it isn't nice and b) you need to realise it could come back on you.I don't know why but she kept trusting this girl (bully) with things and then bully would go and blab it about and on this particular day DD had just had enough.She didn't think for 1 minute that any of the girls would actually fight(I was surprised too).I do get quite frustrated with DD about some of the things she says about some girls and if I know of anything or hear of anything I will pull her up on it.It isn't just bitchy comments about other girls she was fed up about it was being embarrased in front of boys she liked etc.

Oh Jabbie it all sounds so stressful! Like you, I hate physical violence and am not used to dealing with it, so I find it really hard to understand that it is normal among my son's peers... They disagree = they fight :( The first time it happened, I involved the police, and quickly learned that even they thought it was normal for boys to resolve differences this way :( I'm glad your experience with the police was more positive :)