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23rd May 2022

Young boy loses his fingers in bullying incident at Welsh school

Sarah McKenna Barry

An investigation is underway.

A school in Wales has had to shut its doors following a bullying incident that led to an 11-year-old boy having to get his finger amputated.

As Metro reports, Abertillery Learning Community in Gwent, South Wales has been shut and an investigation is underway.

Last week, the mother of 11-year-old Raheem Bailey shared a photograph of her son receiving hospital care after he was severely injured in a bullying incident.

Shantal Bailey said that Raheem has faced “racial and physical abuse” from students at the school, as well as “more generic bullying”.

In the now-viral Instagram post, Ms. Bailey wrote that her son was being bullied in school and threatened with detention by his teachers. She brought the issue up with the school, who said that “everything would be handled by the Tuesday morning”.

However, on Tuesday, Ms. Bailey said that Raheem was “attacked and beaten by a group of children whilst in school.”

Raheem subsequently left the school grounds and rang his mother to tell him what happened. In his bid to escape his bullies, he climbed a fence but the ring he was wearing got stuck on the fence and broke his finger.

Ms. Bailey said that she was told an ambulance wouldn’t arrive for two hours, so the school bus took them to a minor injuries unit. They then spent the next five hours waiting for an ambulance to bring them to Swansea so he could undergo surgery.

She wrote: “As time rolled on, it became more apparent that the possibility my son was going to lose his finger was a real one. The doctors then confirmed this was likely. I had to explain this to him while he sat there in agony.”

In the end, Raheem’s finger was amputated.

A GoFundMe to support Raheem’s surgery has since been set up.