A mother has shared a heart-breaking image of her 10-year-old daughter in hospital after she attempted suicide over bullying.
Jess Brown, 27, took daughter Lilly-Jo to A&E at Worcestershire Royal Hospital after she refused to eat and ‘took tablets’.
The mother-of-three said her child was ‘fighting for her life’ following ‘months of bullying’ from another female pupil at Witton Middle School in Droitwich.
Jess Brown has shared images of her 10-year-old daughter Lilly-Jo Caldcott, pictured, in hospital on her birthday after the youngster ‘stopped eating and took tablets after being bullied by another pupil’
Ms Brown, right, said her daughter, left, had been stamped on, had her head smashed into a locker and her hair pulled by another female student
Ms Brown said she had been battling to get her daughter to go to school every morning and had spoken to teachers ‘every day’ for 12 weeks to try to resolve the situation to no avail.
She blasted Lilly-Jo’s school, saying they failed to offer her daughter the proper support.
The single mother said: ‘I knew Lilly wasn’t right on Monday because she wasn’t eating and seemed really withdrawn after school.
‘I sat her down and she admitted she’d taken some pills. I took her to the GP and he said we should go straight to hospital.
‘I thought my daughter was going to die. I am disgusted my daughter is being bullied yet nothing is being done about it.
‘Nobody seems to want to help at all. We will not be sending her back to the school, it’s not worth the risk.
‘The doctor said if we had left her two more weeks, she would be dead. I’m not going to bury my child.
‘My daughter is fighting for her life because of bullying.
‘She had been going downhill, not eating, a lot more tired than she used to be.
‘We’re backwards and forwards to the doctors. She admitted she was being bullied straight away.
‘You never expect see your own daughter on her 10th birthday in hospital after a suicide attempt. It’s heartbreaking.’
Ms Brown said her daughter, pictured in hospital, was also displaying signs of jaundice and added it had left her two younger children devastated
Lilly-Jo, pictured left and right, said in a video her mother made the bully has demanded she leave the school and had turned her friends against her
Ms Brown said she confronted the parents of girl who has bullied Lilly-Jo but they laughed at her.
She said: ‘She [the bully] has pulled her hair, pushed her, smacked Lilly-Jo and also shut a locker door on Lilly-Jo’s head, stamped on her foot when it was broken – the list is endless.
‘I have to fight with Lilly-Jo to get her to school now. She’s terrified to go back there.
‘The day after Lilly overdosed I went round to the parents of the girl who has bullied her and showed them the pictures of her in hospital.
‘I wanted to show them the impact of their daughter’s words but they just laughed at me and swore at me.
‘I’ve told the school about Lilly being bullied but they haven’t done anything to help either.
‘I feel that Lilly has been let down by the school who have not taken bullying seriously.’
Ms Brown also posted an earlier video of Lilly pouring her heart out about being bullied at school and her attempts to tell her teachers at Witton Middle School, in Droitwich.
In the eight-minute video, Lilly-Jo says: ‘There is this kid at school who is bullying me since I have been at Witton.
Ms Brown, left, said the school had let her daughter, right, down because they ‘did not take the bullying seriously’
‘It has been getting worse and worser she pulled my hair in PE and stamped on my foot, I was crying and she went off laughing.
‘Then she was staring at me in the changing rooms and calling me fat.
‘She saw me eating two crumpets, a drink and a turkey baguette, that was all I had.
‘I’m scared she’s going to call me fat.
‘Every time I try to tell the school, I told the deputy headteacher on Wednesday morning, we were spending all morning, until 12.35pm having a meeting to get the truth out of her but she denied it all.
‘She has sent text messages to my friend and now they are not speaking to me – they have a picture of me falling off a yellow bench and I was crying.
‘She said that if I don’t move school she will carry on bullying me until I get angry.
‘I don’t want to kill myself.’
Nearly 5,000 children under-11 years old contacted Childline over bullying last year
By Eleanor Harding for the Daily Mail
Almost 5,000 children under 11 had to be counselled for bullying and cyberbullying last year, Childline has revealed.
The national helpline said young children were regularly being targeted by peers online, at school and in their neighbourhoods.
And bullying was the most frequently discussed problem for under-11s who contacted its counsellors, the charity added.
Childline said young children were regularly being targeted by peers online, at school and in their neighbourhoods (file photo)
A total of 19,681 children and teenagers contacted Childline in 2017/18 about bullying, with around half aged 12 to 15.
The figures were released ahead of Anti-bullying Week to highlight the scale of the problem facing youngsters.
Childline service manager Wendy Robinson said: ‘Every year thousands of young people receive counselling from us having suffered bullying and cyberbullying.
‘These experiences can have a devastating impact on their lives, potentially leading to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and in the very worst cases, suicide.
‘Whether it’s happening online or in the real world, it is vitally important that any young person who is experiencing bullying talks to someone they trust, be it a friend, parent, teacher or a Childline counsellor.’
Earlier this year, a study by the NSPCC, which runs Childline, found schools are sending increasing numbers of children for mental health treatment amid an explosion of depression.
The number of referrals by schools seeking mental health treatment for troubled pupils has shot up in the past four years.
Across 53 NHS Trusts, there were 34,757 referrals in 2017-18, compared with 25,140 in 2014-15.
Lilly-Jo is now in a stable condition in Worcestershire Royal Hospital and is being given counselling by mental health experts.
Her headteacher, Cath Crossley, denied the school had not taken appropriate measures to investigate the bullying claims.
She said: ‘We were made aware of these bullying allegations and took immediate action, following the relevant school policies and procedures.
‘Face-to-face meetings were organised with myself, the deputy headteacher and our chair of Governors with the families involved and the families have also been working with our support worker.
‘This school takes all allegations of bullying extremely seriously, this includes racist, homophobic, gender-based or bullying related to disabilities.
‘Our school maintains a strict anti-bullying policy, which can be accessed on our school website.
‘This week is Anti-Bullying Week 2018 and we are fully supporting it.
‘We are using this week to hold a special Kindness Week where children will be working together to create a Kindness Tree which will feature special messages of kindness.
‘Pupils will also be undertaking some classroom learning on the theme of anti-bullying.
‘Our thoughts go out to Lilly-Jo and her family at this difficult time.’
- For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local branch. See www.samaritans.org for details.