Attack 'the most horrible thing ever' - victim's mother

Images taken from footage of the attack show the victim being repeatedly punched and kicked while on the ground. Photo / Supplied

Parents need to take responsibility in the aftermath of a horrific attack which left a Whanganui schoolgirl bloodied and in need of hospital treatment, Education Minister Anne Tolley says.

Graphic cell phone video footage has surfaced showing a prolonged and vicious assault that left a 15-year-old girl bleeding from her ears and needing hospital treatment.

Read the original story on the Wanganui Chronicle.

The footage, which has been circulated around several Whanganui schools, shows the girl being pushed to the ground by another Girls' College student, before she is kicked and sustains a series of punches to her head.

As the girl lies on the ground, the assailant is seen standing over her and kicking her in the back before stomping on her head.

The attack occurred outside school hours on March 8, and the students involved were not in the grounds of Wanganui Girls' College at the time.

The attacker has appeared in the Youth Court and has been excluded from school.

Ms Tolley noted the attack had taken place outside Wanganui Girls College and said parents had a vital role in stopping their children's violent behaviour.

"Behaviour issues shouldn't be left to schools to deal with on their own. Parents should also take responsibility.

"Any kind of bullying is unacceptable, and this is an issue which the whole school community has to address."

"Schools aren't immune to the rise in violent behaviour which has taken place in society, and the vast majority of schools have robust plans in place to deal with it."

Government had invested $60 million in a Positive Behaviour for Learning plan, which will train 5000 teachers in effective classroom management and staff from 400 schools in how to promote positive behaviour and lift student engagement, Ms Tolley said.

At least 12,000 parents in at-risk families will be supported in lifting their parenting skills, she said.

Wanganui Girls' College principal Vivanne Murphy said the school has been making students remove the footage from their phones.

She said social networking sites make it easy for students to circulate those sorts of things.

The victim's mother was alerted to the assault by a neighbour. She went out to find her daughter lying beaten and unconscious on the grass.

The mother said it was "the most horrible thing ever" to see her daughter in such a state.

She was happy with how the school had dealt with the incident, but wished parents, schools and the Government would do more to stop bullying.

"[Schools] can only punish [students who bully] with expelling them and to me that's not enough.

"These kids know they won't get arrested because they're too young. That's why they do it."

The woman said parents also had some responsibility for their children's behaviour.

She described the attitude of the parents of the alleged attacker as "very disappointing".

"If my daughter was the one doing the bullying, I'd put a stop to it. I'd see it as my responsibility too."

Two weeks after the assault, the girl still suffers from headaches, is scared and lies awake at night.

"I keep getting flashbacks and I can't really sleep," she said.

Wanganui Girls' College is setting her schoolwork to do at home.

The father of another Wanganui Girls' College student showed the footage of the assault to Chronicle staff yesterday.

Neither the father nor his daughter want to be identified. The father said the images made him "sick to my stomach".

"It made me feel physically ill after seeing it."

He said he and his family had considered taking their daughters out of the school because of what had happened.

"We've considered the safety of our girls but it's pretty hard because bullying like this happens in every school.

"But this is the worst thing I've ever seen.

Sure, someone might get a belt around the ears occasionally and that's an end of it. But I've never seen anything as brutal as this.

"A lot of people would have seen that bullying incident on TV involving the young boys but that's nothing like this assault. This one is just vicious," the father said.

His daughter said she was not sure where the assault took place but had been sent the footage of the assault by a friend. She said she had no idea how her friend had got the images.

She had watched the footage once but would not watch it again.

* nzherald.co.nz received footage of the attack but chose not to publish it because of the extreme violence shown.