Ben's Story
As told by www.dailymail.co.uk
- Olinka Koster
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.
html?in_article_id=449548&in_page_id=1770#StartComments
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Ben Vodden - 11 years old
Bullycide in the United Kingdom
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Found hanged:
The bullied 11-year-old
boy who even the bus driver called names
By OLINKA KOSTER
When Ben Vodden told his mother
he was being bullied on the school bus, she advised him to sit next to
the driver.
Yet rather than look after him,
the driver joined in the taunts and called the 11-year-old names, it has
been claimed.
Ben finally was found hanged
after enduring months of bullying by pupils on the bus, an inquest heard.
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The boy – nicknamed Giggles
by his family because of his "fun-loving and enthusiastic" nature – was
found with shoelaces around his neck and tied to his bunk bed.
Since starting secondary school
last September, Ben had encountered name-calling, gesturing and swearing
on the bus.
The inquest was told that driver
Brian McCullough was partly responsible, allegedly calling the youngster
"Master Bate", "D***head" and "Billy No Mates".
Ben’s mother Caroline, 47, said
his last words to her were: "I’m sorry, Mummy."
His father Paul, a 57-year-old
forestry worker, found him unconscious after returning from work to the
family home in Southwater, West Sussex, on December 12.
A pathologist confirmed that
Ben died by hanging.
Mrs Vodden, a trainee church
minister, told the inquest: "He would say, 'Everybody is being horrid to
me, Mummy'. Then he would say, 'I have got no friends'.
"On December 4 he came home
from school and he was the most upset I have ever seen him.
"He tried to tear up his bus
pass and said, 'I’m never going on that bus again Mummy, I hate that bus,
I hate my school'.
"Ben said the bus driver had
been calling him Master Bate because he was ‘a little w*****’ and everyone
else on the bus had started calling him that too."
On December 12, Ben’s parents
received a phone call from the school saying he had been taken off the
bus on the way home because he had been hitting the air vent and making
a gesture at the driver.
But he refused to explain his
behaviour to his mother. "He immediately got very angry and defensive and
asked what the school had said," she said.
"He said, 'I won’t tell you
and I can’t tell you'. I followed him and stopped him from leaving the
room and said, 'Sweetheart, you have got to tell me because we can’t help
you unless you tell me what has happened'."
Ben went into his room but emerged
to give his mother a hug and say sorry, before returning to his room and
sobbing loudly before he was found dead.
Giving evidence at the inquest
in Horsham, West Sussex, bus driver Mr McCullough denied calling Ben Master
Bate.
"I feel like I have been put
on trial this morning," he said.
"I really did like him and had
a lot of time for him. We used to call each other D***heads – it was the
banter.
"I did say Billy No Mates, but
again that was in banter because he was having a go at me at the time.
I just said, 'Sit down, Billy No Mates'.
"When I heard about his death
I was devastated because to me he was Jack the Lad and the aggressor on
the coach."
The inquest heard Ben had been
the victim of bullies on the bus who stole his tie the second day after
he started at Tanbridge House, a 1,420- pupil state school in Horsham.
On the morning of his death
he sent his father a text saying: "Please can you bring my hair gel. PS
They are doing it again."
West Sussex Coroner Dr David
Shipp recorded an open verdict, saying he was not satisfied Ben had intended
to take his own life.
He added: "I believe this story
highlights the vulnerability of some young people to outside influence
and our responsibility as adults to treat these youngsters with consideration
and respect, however hard that can be at the time."
In a statement Mr and Mrs Vodden
said: "It has been an extremely traumatic day but we are grateful that
all concerned answered the coroner’s questions. Ben was being bullied and
some of those incidents occurred at school and on the school bus.
"When Ben told us people were
being horrible to him on the bus, we even suggested to him he sit near
the driver where he would be safe.
"The simple fact is that Ben
would not be dead if he hadn’t been bullied. We strongly believe that."
Why does this sort of thing
continue, in the 21st century? The apathy of schools is to blame, mainly,
apart from the cruelty of some children to others.
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