Bullies badger pupils by text

Bullies are using mobile phones to terrorise their Whangarei school mates.
Text-bullying is widespread in the city's schools and children are getting hurt, says Whangarei "campus cop" Hank van Engelen.
Incidents include a teenage girl with a promising academic future quitting school halfway through fifth form after she was taunted and threatened via text messages.
As well, a 14-year-old boy received hundreds of derogatory text messages after malicious rumours were spread about him on students' mobile phones.
"We are getting lots of kids being picked on by text-bullies. A victim will be found and a nasty text message about them will be sent to hundreds of students and it might be total lies," Mr van Engelen said.
The Whangarei schoolgirl - who quit school last year and is now working - began receiving aggressive text messages at intermediate school. It persisted throughout her time at three local high schools, she said.
Sexual taunts and threats of physical violence were common themes of the messages, said the young woman, who did not want to be named. "It stuffed up my schooling. I would still be there now if it wasn't so hideous.
"I was very good at maths but I never learned anything because I was too stressed out," she said.
The messages had escalated to verbal abuse and in one case physical abuse in the school grounds, she said. The text messages she received were "random, up to three times a week. I still won't go downtown by myself. I have a fear of someone coming up and cornering me."
Mr van Engelen said a derogatory remark about a 14-year-old Whangarei schoolboy recently had "no truth to it whatsoever". "Next thing half the school was taunting him and he was very upset. Text-bullying is an ongoing problem. It's quite nasty for the victims and it affects their learning and it affects them at home. It gets them depressed," he said.
"It is faceless and it's happening 24 hours a day."
He was told of text-bullying occurring in Whangarei schools "once or twice a fortnight".
He said text-bullying was often dealt with by way of a "restorative conference", where victims, culprits, parents, school staff and Mr van Engelen talked together.
However the 17-year-old girl who quit school said restorative conferences were not for her. "They wanted me to confront my bullies but I didn't want to."
She had dreaded going to school and often "bunked" after getting dropped at the gate.
Untrue rumours about pupils were often spread via mobile phones. "Something you say will get expanded into this big hideous story and you get taunted for it. It happens to a lot of people. Every day someone's getting bullied."
Mr van Engelen urged parents to keep tabs on children's mobile phone use. "A lot of parents would have no idea this is happening."
In 2003 Oamaru teenager Daniel Gillies, who had been bombarded with abusive text messages, died after falling down a cliff. His mother said he had killed himself because of the text-bullying.