Cyber Bullying

Claiming for personal injury: anyone can do it! The simple formula required for a claim to be successful is that another person or party can be found negligent in their duty of care over others.

This negligence has then caused the victim to be injured or to have suffered in some way, whether physically or psychologically. And this duty of care should be something even more essential in a school…

If you have been keeping up with the news lately, you may have noticed the word ‘bullying’ been thrown about a lot recently. According to the BBC 47% of 14 year olds (almost half!) experience some form of bullying, government statistics have concluded (source).

The most common forms of bullying were found to be name calling and cyber bullying, which has reportedly increased with the popularity of social network groups like Facebook and MySpace. The figures coincide with this week’s “anti-bullying” week which commenced from 16^th November with “cyber bullying” being the popular theme; coining the slogan “stay safe in cyber space!”

So what’s this got to do with personal injury?

Schools and education authorities have a duty of care to ensure their pupils are safe in school and their welfare is maintained. Bullying is obviously not nice to endure; and physical or psychological injuries sustained as a result of bullying can be the result of negligence on the schools part.

School management must ensure that pupils are appropriately supervised and looked after, with the necessary support in place to help all the pupils should they require it. If schools fail to do this and a pupil is injured or suffers psychologically, the school is negligent, and a claim for compensation can be brought against the school.

Claims against schools are often difficult when it comes to establishing the burden of proof that the school has been negligent. There are guidelines in place whereby schools must ensure they have the correct amount of staff for the amount of pupils present, and risk assessments are carried out where appropriate.

Another problem of course is that a lot of bullying sadly remains unreported.

If a child has been injured at school, it is always essential that it is brought to the attention of the schools management; this goes without saying.

Our advice is to seek expert advice from an independent personal injury solicitor to find out where you stand.