MP Barry Sheerman was contacted by a teen Syrian refugee weeks before he was waterboarded at school in a sickening racial attack - but nothing was done
A little over a month ago, Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman received an email from one of his constituents. It was from a 15-year-old boy and titled: ‘Complaint. Please help me.’
Underneath, he catalogued, in chilling detail, the physical and psychological abuse he had been subjected to by bullies at his school.
They had, he said, doused him in water, thrown an egg at him, broken his arm, and even set his hair on fire.
‘On a number of occasions,’ the youngster revealed, ‘I have observed my abusers laughing and recording me on their smart phones without my permission.’
Behind this harrowing testimony is a story which has dominated the headlines this week.
For the writer of this email is a Syrian refugee called Jamal. He was identified this week after a sickening video of him allegedly being ‘waterboarded’ was posted online.
The footage shows him being headbutted and dragged to the ground by the neck before his attacker threatens ‘to drown him’ by pouring a bottle of water over his face as fellow pupils at Almondbury Community School, just outside Huddersfield, cheer.
Yesterday, the incident prompted Theresa May to say Britain remains a ‘welcoming country’ despite the ‘sickening’ bullying of a child refugee. The Prime Minister added that she had been horrified by footage of the playground attack.
Could there be a more damning commentary of the world we now live in? What happened to Jamal seems especially shocking because he thought Britain was a place where he would be safe. A place where he could be happy. A place where his family had sought sanctuary from the horrors of war-torn Syria.
Indeed, the more we learn about his background, the sadder this story becomes; his childhood, according to a relative we spoke to this week, has been defined by ‘fear, instability and struggle’.
Jamal was born in the ancient Syrian city of Homs, a city once dubbed the ‘capital of the revolution’ after its inhabitants embraced a call to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s regime back in 2011.
They paid a terrible price in the brutal government-led backlash; Jamal himself was barely eight when a number of his extended family were abducted, tortured and murdered by the Assad regime.
Jamal (pictured returning to school after the video went viral) was born in the ancient Syrian city of Homs, a city once dubbed the ‘capital of the revolution’
Their lives in grave danger, Jamal and his family fled to neighbouring Lebanon, the nearest safe haven. There, his parents and younger sister, now aged 13, would spend the next six years in desperate conditions. They, along with more than a million Syrian refugees, lived in makeshift tents, sleeping on dirt floors.
Finally, in 2016, they were given safe passage to this country by the United Nations. The British Government promised to resettle up to 20,000 of the Syrian diaspora, and Jamal and his family were among the lucky few who were welcomed here.
More than £108,000 has been raised for a teenage Syrian refugee after a video of him being bullied at school was posted online. The victim, in white and wearing a blue cast on his left arm, was approached on the school field as others looked on
Or so it seemed.
They were placed in Almondbury, one of the oldest and prettiest villages on the edge of the Pennine moors on the outskirts of Huddersfield. The former mill town has a higher than average number of residents from ethnic minorities. The largest (making up nearly 16 per cent of the population) describe themselves as Asian.
Around 100 Syrian refugees, in particular, ended up in the Huddersfield area. Jamal’s family were given a three-bedroomed end-of terrace council house on a cul de sac, near Almondbury Community School.
Jamal described the optimism he initially felt on his arrival in Yorkshire in his one and only TV interview a few days ago.
‘I was thinking my life was going to be good, my future is really going to be really good if I study at school,’ he said poignantly.
In fact, Jamal says he and his sister — the only Syrian children in their respective classes — became targets for bullies within just a month of starting school. Neither of his parents speak English so they couldn’t make the case for their children. But Jamal, a bright boy, had learned good English in the two years he had been here. In desperation, he decided he had no choice but to help himself as he felt nothing was being done to protect him at school.
In the video, the attacker, carrying a water bottle, headbutts him, and pushes him to the ground
He not only had the wherewithal to send an email to the local authority, Kirklees Council, but also to individual councillors, the Department of Education, Ofsted and the police.
That email found its way to veteran MP Barry Sheerman.
‘I did everything I could to support him,’ Mr Sheerman, who also lives in Almondbury, told the Mail this week. He said he was satisfied the authorities had ‘responded positively’ but said he had enormous sympathy for Jamal.
‘The tragedy is that Huddersfield is a cosmopolitan, university town, a great place to live.’
It is clear from the email, though, that the so-called ‘waterboarding’ episode was far from the only incident. It occurred on October 25 on the school playing fields.
Police said they were sent a video of what happened at the time — before it was posted on social media this week — and interviewed the suspect on November 6, after which the case was reviewed by a youth offending team, who recommended further action; a teenager is to appear before a youth court for the alleged attack.
Officers also ‘fully investigated’ a wrist injury (Jamal refers to this as a broken arm in the email) he sustained on October 7 and three youths were subsequently interviewed. No further action was taken ‘as the evidential test required to prosecute was not met’.
Nevertheless, the video shows Jamal with his arm in a cast, so he wasn’t making it up.
We now know, of course, that, previously his hair was set on fire and he’d had an egg thrown at him, too.
Police have also confirmed they are investigating an assault on Jamal’s sister, a video of which went viral as well. Footage showed girls trying to pull off her hijab and pushing her to the ground.
How did all this make Jamal feel? ‘I was feeling like I couldn’t study,’ he revealed in that moving TV interview. ‘I woke up at night and just started crying. They think I’m different, different from them. It was really bad. I don’t feel safe at school. I was feeling unsafe everywhere — even to go to the shop. Sometimes I say to my dad, I don’t want to go to school any more.’
The bully then holds his victim's throat she her pours water over his face
Jamal’s ordeal, since it became public, has brought out the best — and worst — in British society.
Crowdfunders have raised £150,000 for his family. Nearly 10,000 people contributed to the GoFundMe appeal after a clip of the ‘waterboarding’ incident surfaced on the internet.
But Tommy Robinson, the former English Defence League leader, defended the 16-year-old accused of picking on Jamal. In a series of poisonous rants on Instagram and Facebook, Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) claimed Jamal was not ‘innocent’.
He accused him of joining in an assault on a ‘white girl’ at Almondbury Community School.
Later, the mother of the alleged victim posted a message on Robinson’s site denying Jamal was responsible. Robinson further claimed the case went to court, but a spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said they were not aware of any such case. Robinson has since retracted his claims. And it is not only the Far Right who have been accused of using the plight of Jamal to peddle their own political message.
Members of the Muslim community have also been criticised.
Around 30 protesters, from a group calling themselves ‘British Asians’, gathered outside Almondbury Community School on Thursday to show their support for Jamal. But most, if not all, were from outside the area, including Mirban Aslam, 41, a bricklayer from Bradford. He complained that the ‘system’ had failed Jamal and accused Almondbury of a ‘cover-up’. When the Mail spoke to him yesterday, he denied trying to politicise events.
‘The idea of the protest was to generate national media coverage of the issues, for other victims of bullying and racism to come forward and to bring out the truth on this matter from the school.’
The attacker then loosens his grip, the victim gets up and calmly walks away as other students watch on
Not everyone, including Muslim parents with children at Almondbury, saw it that way. ‘I can’t seem to understand why they think protesting is going to help a situation like this,’ read one message left on the website of the local paper. ‘What about all the children at school today. Will they not be frightened seeing all these people? Getting very much out of hand now.’ The message was from Zoya Hussain.
Others voiced similar concerns. ‘It’s an absolute f****** joke. There are innocent children in the school and three of them are mine. All you protesters are worse than the bullies, making innocent children scared and making us worry!’
A third added: ‘This isn’t fair. Our kids are at school petrified, most didn’t wanna go today. It’s not on, it’s frightening them.’
Either way, Jamal’s family say they will be using the money raised by wellwishers to leave Huddersfield.
‘They don’t want to live here any more,’ said their lawyer Tasnime Akunjee. ‘The level of abuse the children received has become too much. It’s early days on exactly where they will relocate to, but I have been advising them and they need to think about that now. They need to take stock and get over the shock of it all. The children need to move on and get on with their lives.’
The terrible irony is that, after the horrors of Homs, Huddersfield is the place where they should be ‘getting on with their lives’.
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