Welcome to the jungle

Bully gang runs family out of Lismore
Exclusive by Bruce McDougall
December 01, 2008 12:00am

THE grieving family of 14-year-old bullying victim Alex Wildman have fled their Lismore home after a campaign of terror and intimidation.

Starting in mid-October, three months after Alex's suicide, thugs began driving past their home every hour, threatening to "burn, bash and kill" anyone in the house.

The ordeal escalated when the boyfriend of Alex's sister Josie was attacked in the street after asking a group of local men to leave them alone.

The family claim they finally quit the town for their own safety at the suggestion of police.

Stepfather Bill Kelly told yesterday how he packed up Alex's mum Justine, sisters Josie, 17, and Lizzie, 10, and brother Nathan, 7, and moved to an undisclosed location.

"I put my wife and the kids in the car and started for Sydney. Carloads of these people were driving past our home day and night. They threatened to burn, bash and kill," Mr Kelly said.
Alex and his family moved to Lismore, on the NSW North Coast, at the beginning of the year.
Their troubles began when the Year 9 Kadina High School student took his own life on July 25 after a series of violent run-ins with schoolmates.

Fellow students said the "placid six-footer" had been "picked on" after a school fight.
Mr and Mrs Kelly are now pressing for changes to the way in which bullying incidents are handled and the treatment of victims.

"We were terrorised out of town. I was the school bus driver but neither of us is capable of working at the moment - trauma upon trauma has been heaped on us," Mrs Kelly said.

Richmond local area command crime manager Detective Inspector Steve Clarke confirmed the family made a complaint about intimidation but refused to comment on the nature of any advice given to the family. He said no charges had been laid over the allegations.

Mrs Kelly said they had never been allowed to grieve properly because they became entangled in red tape over Centrelink payments and housing. Of major concern to the couple is that Lizzie and Nathan have not attended school for five weeks because of the disruption.

"I have had enough of watching my wife run around government bodies," Mr Kelly said.
"Since Alex has gone Justine has not been allowed to grieve."

The still traumatised family said they were not given adequate counselling and had been forced to bunk down with relatives.

"There are 11 people sharing a three-bedroom house and one bathroom," Ms Kelly said.

Lawyers for the family are collecting evidence of bullying in a bid to find out why Alex took his life. Ballina law firm Dakin Law has called on witnesses to provide information about bullying to be presented at an inquest early next year.

Merv King, who was Lismore mayor when Alex died and who called on the community to unite in the fight against bullying, said he was unaware the family had been forced out.

"Families in this type of trauma should be looked after," he said.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24729815-5001021,00.html

Bullying is what happens whenever you put a large group of people together. They did a study once - by putting a bunch of popular kids in a camping trip, from different schools. What happened was, a minority got picked on, despite being popular kids at their school (I'll post the link up once I find it).

The problem is, school is supposed to be for learning, not trying to survive an uber-gladiatorial arena where only the lucky survive. Home-schooling is the best option. But this would ruin the bureaucrat's plans of teaching kids to submit to authority (ie. compulsory schooling). Hence we have a conundrum on our hands.

Regarding the story, the fact that it got to the stage where the bullies drove the bully victim's family out of town and nothing was done about it is quite alarming.