Te Kauwhata College is a "horrible" school with a serious bullying problem, according to a former student's mother.
The mother, who spoke to Newshub anonymously, pulled her daughter from the north Waikato school last week -- and says she won't be going back after suffering a torrent of emotional and physical abuse from other students.
"Things like 'you're ugly', 'I bet your mother hates you', 'how could anyone love a girl as ugly as you are'. Then it turned to things like, she got bailed up in the school toilet by 10 other girls. They threatened to punch her head in and put her six feet under."
Yesterday Newshub revealed 14-year-old Te Kauwhata College student Krishnan Naidu spent spent six days in hospital after being attacked by bullies earlier this month. He suffered a concussion and cuts to the base of his scalp.
The bullies got away with only two days' suspension and will receive counselling, after the school's principal called it a "game" that got out of hand.
"There was no game -- they just came randomly in a circle and everyone started slapping me," Krishnan told Newshub.
Principal Deborah Hohneck acknowledged the seriousness of the incident, but claimed the school dealt with the students involved appropriately. She said the school has been sending strong anti-bullying messages to students all year.
Chief human rights commissioner David Rutherford says the decile 4 school made a mistake in not calling the police.
"When it reaches this sort of level and a kid is hospitalised, it should be reported to the police. That's reasonably clear as far as I'm concerned."
Krishnan's family say not only did the school fail to get the police involved, they didn't even call an ambulance -- the family instead took him to a local medical centre, before he was transferred to Waikato Hospital in Hamilton.
"Schools are not separate little principalities," says Mr Rutherford. "It's going to get a lot worse if you don't go to the police and rely on the police to do the things they do well."
When bullies get away with their crimes, Mr Rutherford says they won't learn there are consequences.
"If the police deal with it, it's not that they'll necessarily throw these children in prison. It'll go through the youth justice system," he says.
"In my experience, that can involve some pretty confronting conversations. The kids will be in no doubt about the seriousness of what they did."
He says New Zealand needs a comprehensive anti-bullying programme.
"It's a very serious issue and the effects are long-term. It's not actually the physical beating that the kids remember. One of the things they remember most is no one came to their help."
Sooner or later both Krishnan and his bullies will see each other on the playground. It's a situation the mother who pulled her daughter out of the school wants to avoid.
"Anybody that asks me what the school is like, I will give my open and honest opinion that it is horrible and not to send their children there."
Te Kauwhata College was approached for comment again on Wednesday after the second bullying allegation emerged.
Newshub.
