Schools need to step up to deal with sexual assault - Louise Nicholas

  • 09/11/2015
Facebook (Paul Henry)
Facebook (Paul Henry)

There are calls for harsher penalties to be handed down to a group of school boys who posted explicit photos of drunk teenage girls online.

The students at an unnamed secondary school performed sexually degrading acts on the girls and shared photos of the behaviour on a private Facebook page.

Police have let them off with a warning.

National sexual violence survivor advocate Louise Nicholas joined Paul Henry to discuss the case.

She says it's difficult to make judgements as the full details of the case are not yet known.

"The police reasoning for not taking it forward is interesting. We have to look at the age of the perpetrators."

She says the boys involved need to understand the harm they are doing and how it can lead to further harmful behaviour later in life.

"Let's start being proactive instead of reactive. We need to be in our schools. It's not about saying don't drink, don't have sex or don't take drugs. We have to help them understand the repercussions."

Nicholas says things like this are not new but social media is making the actions public.

Principals' Association executive member Patrick Walsh is calling for criminal prosecution to stop the behaviour.

"There are a small group of students, particularly boys, who think that they are immune from prosecution, resist all of our efforts to get them to change their behaviour," says Mr Walsh.

The incident is drawing comparisons to the Roast Busters scandal of 2013.

Feel free to get in touch &- send us an email paul@paulhenry.co.nz

The Paul Henry Show 6am - 9am Weekdays on TV3, Radio LIVE and www.paulhenry.co.nz

Other places you can find the Paul Henry Show:

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/PaulHenryShow/

Twitter  https://twitter.com/PaulHenryShow

&  Instagram  https://instagram.com/paulhenryshow1/