The parents of a primary school girl have been left utterly disgusted after she was bullied into doing a Nazi salute by older children during the Euro football championship - because she is half German. Paul and Nicole Jones claim that their seven-year-old daughter Morrigan has been victim of bullying on several occasions at Pelynt Primary School near Looe over the past two years.
The Welsh dad and German mum said the worst incident came to light at the end of last month on the school playing field during a lunch break. Mr Jones said: "Three Year 4 children where vandalising a tree with cricket bats. Morrigan and her two friends approached them and said it was not nice doing that.
"At one point, the boy involved held the cricket bat in a threatening manner and ordered Morrigan to say something in German, which she did, and they laughed at it and told her to say something else. She answered with a 'no' as they would only laugh at her. The three older children told her to do the Hitler salute. Morrigan said she did not know how to."
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Mr Jones, who is 66 and owns and runs Figynberg German shepherds breeders, added: "At that point one of the boys did the salute whereupon they threatened Morrigan again so Morrigan, with no understanding of what it meant, did the salute. After this Morrigan and her two classmates reported the vandalism to the tree to the class teacher but not the racist remarks as she did not understand the gravity of the remarks.
"We had a meeting the next morning with the head teacher who said he was shocked and that this behaviour was to be stopped immediately. He asked us the names of the children and also the names of Morrigan's friends who witnessed it and asked us to give them the day to investigate it, in the meantime the three children involved where awarded a kindness award that very morning."
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The alleged incident happened on Wednesday, June 26, the day the group games concluded in the Euro Championship held in Germany. Neither England nor Germany played that day.
Mr Jones said he and Nicole did not hear back from the school on the Friday nor again on the following Monday when Morrigan, who has two sisters and a brother in Germany, was sick and didn't go to school. Mr Jones added: "We kept trying to contact the teacher involved but did not hear anything until the Tuesday when we were informed that they could not prove who had been involved so basically there was nothing they could do.
"We contacted the police but they weren't of any help, telling us that it was on school premises and the school should deal with it as those involved are below the age of criminal liability." Mr Jones said he and Nicole have also contacted the new Labour MP for South East Cornwall Anna Gelderd but were told to bear with her as she had just been elected and was not even sworn in."
He said it was not the first time Morrigan had allegedly been bullied at the school in the past two years. He added: "We thought about moving her to another school but at the end of the day we didn't feel it was right that she should move when she did nothing wrong. Also she wanted to stay with her friends and likes the school."
Mr Jones added: "The first incident happened two years ago just before Christmas when Morrigan was in the school library when she was confronted by an older boy who has special needs and he told her he was going to stab father Christmas and beat up her friends. As you can imagine as a then five-year-old looking forward to Christmas this was quite devastating, the response from the school was that the boy shouldn't have been there unaccompanied and it won't happen again.
"There have been other incidents but nothing like the most recent one last month. We feel the school has been playing for time because they know we're moving back to Germany in the summer. But incidents like that are really not nice and should be stamped out. It makes you wonder where the children involved got that from."
Pelynt Primary School, which is rated as 'good' by Ofsted, is part of the Bridge Schools Trust. A spokesperson for the trust said it has investigated the matter and added: "We take any allegations around racism extremely seriously and do not tolerate racist behaviour in any form.
"The head of school investigated this matter keeping in touch with the parents and also invited them in for a follow-up meeting. The school has been liaising with the police. Following their guidance the police will not be taking the matter any further. We are pleased that the family have been happy for their child to be at school for the last two weeks."
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