An eight-year-old girl has become the focus of a case which now threatens to go to court, with the Balearic education ministry one of the accused. The lawyer who is apparently preparing this case is Marcos García Montes, a name that most of you will be unfamiliar with but who, in addition to a startling moustache, has a reputation for representing celebrities. Again, the names of those with whom he has been involved during a long and illustrious career are likely to mean very little, but they include the late José María Ruiz Mateos, he of Rumasa and Nueva Rumasa fame (or is it infamy?), and 'Rafi' Escobedo, who he defended in the trial for the 1980 murder of María Lourdes de Urquijo y Morenés, the Marquesa of Urquijo, and her husband. Escobedo was eventually sentenced to 53 years in prison. He hanged himself in 1988.
García Montes is understood to have offered his legal services to the family of the eight-year-old girl who ended up in hospital following a playground incident at the Anselm Turmeda primary school in Son Roca, Palma over two weeks ago. His law firm has said that it will be taking action against the education ministry, the management of the school and the children who were responsible for the girl having been admitted to hospital.
His intervention is a twist in what has become a distinctly odd case and one about which there are questions which need asking. The education ministry has conducted its investigations into what happened in the playground and has concluded that it was essentially little more than a scrap over a ball. The children, aged eight to twelve, who were involved in the "assault" have been given suspensions from school of between three and five days, the ministry saying that their behaviour undermined the "coexistence" at the school.
The education inspectors' report also says that the girl's injuries were minor. So much so that she was able to continue lessons. Only later was she taken to hospital. The family say that, among other things, she was urinating blood. There seemingly was some damage to a kidney that needed attending to.
García Montes's law firm disputes the inspectors' conclusions that the incident was just a fight. It believes the girl had been subjected to bullying, which the family have insisted from the outset, and that rather than a fight or a scrap, as the education minister has suggested, it was a beating.
After the incident first came to light, there were calls for the director of the school to be dismissed. Reasons for this call included the fact that there had not been teachers in the playground at the time. They had apparently needed to attend to a Down Syndrome child. An online petition was set up, which at time of writing has more than 44,000 signatures. This calls on the education minister, Martí March, to dismiss the school director.
March is not the only leading politician to have dismissed the idea that there was no bullying and something potentially more serious going on. So has the national minister of the interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz. He has said that it was a specific case of aggression rather than the consequence of bullying. Bartomeu Barceló, who is the chief prosecutor in the Balearics, has concluded much the same and indeed questioned the extent of injuries that the girl suffered.
The family is basically having none of all this. They say that they are being taken for fools, that the prosecutor is shielding the minister who, in turn, is shielding the school's director. March took six days to say anything about the affair. This may have been wise in that he wanted to know the facts, but his statements since have left the family infuriated. Enter, therefore, García Montes.
The things that have been said by the minister and others, such as the unions, point to a school that is operating in a difficult neighbourhood and to a need to reduce any tensions. There is a high immigrant community. In this context, one of the girl's sisters has said something revealing. She has posed a question. Had her sister hit those who hit her sister, would it have been viewed as a case of racism?
The school, the ministry, no one has made any statements about nationality. They are absolutely right not to. Unfortunately, and although the established media have veered away from this, one cannot prevent what is said on blogs and on social media. It is this factor, therefore, which is making some wonder whether the whole case is being swept under the carpet. But this shouldn't be a primary factor. There are others, such as why the school didn't apparently contact the girl's mother straightaway.
And so now a lawyer is involved. Meanwhile, a small kid has become the centre of an unedifying controversy.
Showing posts with label Bullying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bullying. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2016
Friday, January 22, 2016
Spring And Fall: A winter's grave
"Have you ever tended a child's grave in winter? Do you know what it is to look down on the earth that covers the bones you made? Do you remember the smell of wet leafmeal? Did you feel the cold in your knees? Did you weep when you wiped the grime from the tiny headstone? Did you think about the day when you first came to this place? It was a long while back; it was a lifetime ago that we buried Jolly."
This is the opening to a story entitled "Spring And Fall". I won't give details about the story, as to do so would seem inappropriate and disrespectful. The last sentence does, however, give an idea. "Then he opened the window." The "he" was Jolly, the diminutive for Jolyon.
The author was someone perhaps better known for his idiosyncratic television broadcasts. Well before those, I had become aware of Jonathan Meades. Less so for his journalism than for his fiction and essays. The story comes from a collection called "Filthy English". Published in 1984, it remains one of the finest collections of short stories in a contemporary tradition.
Why am I mentioning this story? Its context, as with the other stories, was mainly the Wiltshire where he grew up and the New Forest and Hampshire that he also knew. Much of the raw material for the stories came from his mother who was a teacher. It was a very English context of the 1960s. As such, it has nothing to do with Spain of 2016. Except, that is, it has everything to do with now, right here, because of the opening and the ending.
I haven't re-read the story thoroughly, but I don't think Meades reveals the boy's age. But from hints as I remember them, he would probably have been around eleven or twelve. It is the very sadness of that opening and of the ending that now come to mind. Have you ever tended a child's grave in winter? One who was eleven years old and who had committed suicide?
Diego González was eleven. He lived in the Madrid district of Leganés. On 14 October last year, Diego jumped from the fifth floor of the family home. On the windowsill was a note. He gave it a title, asking for "Lucho" to be looked after. Lucho was the name of a comfort doll he had had since he was a baby.
"Dad, mum. These eleven years I've been with you have been very good and I will never forget them just as I will never forget you. Dad, you've taught me to be a good person and to keep my promises, and also you have played with me a great deal. Mum, you've taken care of me so much and you've taken me to many places. Each of you is amazing, but together you are the best parents in the world ... I hope that one day we can see each other again in heaven."
Of the remaining content of the note, there is one line that explains everything but yet of course leaves so much unexplained. "I'm telling you this because I can't bear going to school." Diego had concluded, as he wrote, that there was no other way to not go to school.
The suicide was treated by the police as having been the consequence of bullying at school. Diego's parents, though, want the case to be kept open. They say that "odd things" have happened at the school.
It's impossible for me to offer any comment on this particular tragedy and nor would I wish to comment. But it prompted a search into suicide among younger children, a group about which less seems to be said than teenagers. The causes, however, sound much the same, with bullying being one of them. In December 2006, for example, eleven-year-old Ben Vodden took his life in Horsham, Sussex. The bullying had included name-calling by a school bus driver. Other possible causes, again out of respect, do not warrant detailing. The scale of pre-adolescent suicide, mercifully, is miniscule. But, again by example, 56 suicides by under-12s in the US in 2006 are 56 too many.
The circumstances of Diego's death and the one that Jonathan Meades wrote about are very different. There was no bullying in "Spring And Fall": quite the contrary in fact. But his story is one that affected me when I first read it all those years ago. And it still does. The opening is one of desperate loss and sadness. What follows is the wondering and the not knowing. How would the boy be now, as a man?
While Diego's parents believe there may have been reasons other than the one the police concluded, they will have other questions. How utterly and awfully unbearable.
This is the opening to a story entitled "Spring And Fall". I won't give details about the story, as to do so would seem inappropriate and disrespectful. The last sentence does, however, give an idea. "Then he opened the window." The "he" was Jolly, the diminutive for Jolyon.
The author was someone perhaps better known for his idiosyncratic television broadcasts. Well before those, I had become aware of Jonathan Meades. Less so for his journalism than for his fiction and essays. The story comes from a collection called "Filthy English". Published in 1984, it remains one of the finest collections of short stories in a contemporary tradition.
Why am I mentioning this story? Its context, as with the other stories, was mainly the Wiltshire where he grew up and the New Forest and Hampshire that he also knew. Much of the raw material for the stories came from his mother who was a teacher. It was a very English context of the 1960s. As such, it has nothing to do with Spain of 2016. Except, that is, it has everything to do with now, right here, because of the opening and the ending.
I haven't re-read the story thoroughly, but I don't think Meades reveals the boy's age. But from hints as I remember them, he would probably have been around eleven or twelve. It is the very sadness of that opening and of the ending that now come to mind. Have you ever tended a child's grave in winter? One who was eleven years old and who had committed suicide?
Diego González was eleven. He lived in the Madrid district of Leganés. On 14 October last year, Diego jumped from the fifth floor of the family home. On the windowsill was a note. He gave it a title, asking for "Lucho" to be looked after. Lucho was the name of a comfort doll he had had since he was a baby.
"Dad, mum. These eleven years I've been with you have been very good and I will never forget them just as I will never forget you. Dad, you've taught me to be a good person and to keep my promises, and also you have played with me a great deal. Mum, you've taken care of me so much and you've taken me to many places. Each of you is amazing, but together you are the best parents in the world ... I hope that one day we can see each other again in heaven."
Of the remaining content of the note, there is one line that explains everything but yet of course leaves so much unexplained. "I'm telling you this because I can't bear going to school." Diego had concluded, as he wrote, that there was no other way to not go to school.
The suicide was treated by the police as having been the consequence of bullying at school. Diego's parents, though, want the case to be kept open. They say that "odd things" have happened at the school.
It's impossible for me to offer any comment on this particular tragedy and nor would I wish to comment. But it prompted a search into suicide among younger children, a group about which less seems to be said than teenagers. The causes, however, sound much the same, with bullying being one of them. In December 2006, for example, eleven-year-old Ben Vodden took his life in Horsham, Sussex. The bullying had included name-calling by a school bus driver. Other possible causes, again out of respect, do not warrant detailing. The scale of pre-adolescent suicide, mercifully, is miniscule. But, again by example, 56 suicides by under-12s in the US in 2006 are 56 too many.
The circumstances of Diego's death and the one that Jonathan Meades wrote about are very different. There was no bullying in "Spring And Fall": quite the contrary in fact. But his story is one that affected me when I first read it all those years ago. And it still does. The opening is one of desperate loss and sadness. What follows is the wondering and the not knowing. How would the boy be now, as a man?
While Diego's parents believe there may have been reasons other than the one the police concluded, they will have other questions. How utterly and awfully unbearable.
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