Almondbury Community School bullying incident

The victim originally from Homs had spent nearly half his life as a refugee in Lebanon before being resettled by the British government in Huddersfield. Jamal said bullying at Almondbury Community School had only increased since footage of the October attack went viral and had escalated into threats at his home.[10]

Huddersfield MP, Barry Sheerman, said that the 15-year-old victim came to his office in late October asking for help: "The young man himself turned up at my office and told me he was being bullied and appealed for my help".[11] Sheerman reported the allegations to the council leader at Kirklees (Jacqui Gedman) and the Head of Children's Services. (Steve Walker).[12]

Almondbury's Conservative Councillor, Bernard McGuin, revealed Jamal wrote to authorities in a desperate plea for help three weeks before the filmed attack. In the email entitled "complaint: please help me", the youngster said he had been subjected to bullying since he joined the school two years ago in year 9 and listed "incidents and allegations" at the school.[13] McGuin contacted safeguarding officers at the local authority and said: "The school only took action when authority figures got involved" - this has been denied by the Headmaster.[6]

A 16-year-old boy was interviewed by West Yorkshire Police,[14] and reported for summons for an offence of assault.

The suspect had shared numerous posts from far-right social media accounts.[15] The suspect's mother had previously been prosecuted over racist behaviour.[16] The mother's case reached court in November 2017, where she admitted racially aggravated threatening behaviour and was fined.[17] The mother had been quizzed over a second suspected racist attack after calling a chip shop owner a 'terrorist' in July 2018. The suspect's brother was jailed after a far-right Britain First rally erupted in violence and served a 32-month sentence for a public order offence.[18] The suspect's brother, a Huddersfield Town fan, was subsequently jailed for 20 weeks and banned from all football for 8 years for an unprovoked attack on a Halifax Town supporter.[19][18]

Tommy Robinson, activist and founder of English Defence League, interviewed the 16-year-old suspect following the incident. Robinson, may have breached court orders preventing the naming of the alleged perpetrator in several videos on Facebook and Instagram, including one that has been viewed more than 150,000 times. The former Chief Prosecutor for the north-west, Nazir Afzal contacted the police and said that posting material naming the boy was unlawful.[20]

On 27 November 2018, protesters took part in a peaceful demonstration outside the school, organised by the 'Huddersfield Pakistani Community Alliance'.[21] The victim, identified as Jamal, told The Guardian that he and his sister did not wish to return to school, and a solicitor representing the family indicated they were considering moving away from the area.[21]

Jamal said: "I cannot go to my school anymore and there are people who hang around outside my house and video me on their phones. They call me 'little rat' if I go outside. One of my neighbours threatened me outside my house just yesterday."[22]

Jamal asked people not to attack his alleged bully, and said that he was alarmed by the violent threats being made online towards the alleged attacker.[23]

In February 2019, it was reported that owing to continued xenophobic threats against Jamal's family and against other Syrian families in Huddersfield, and a failure to protect the families against these threats, Jamal's family decided leave the area for their own safety.[24]

A fundraising page for the victims family had received more than £150,000.[25] More than 100,000 people signed a petition calling on the Prime Minister to launch an inquiry into rising hate crime and racist bullying in British schools following the incident.[26]

Prime Minister Theresa May commented "most people were sickened and angered" by the video clip. She went on to praise the public for the response and setting up a crowdfunding appeal for the youngster's family.[2]

Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, said he had initially written a personal note to Jamal, and later met with him and his family.[27] Javid said he was victim of racist bullying at school and that seeing the video brought back memories.[28] MP Tobias Ellwood was among those to share the footage, writing online: "Absolute disgrace - Please retweet. This bully, his parents, the school where this occurs and the onlookers who fail to step in, all have big questions to answer".[29][10]

The school faced an emergency inspection by Ofsted when Government inspectors made an unannounced visit on 6 December 2018.[30] Amanda Spielman, Chief Inspector of Schools, said she was "appalled" by the video and had received complaints over it.[25][16] Cathy Kirby, Ofsted North East and Yorkshire and Humber Director, said: "We take the safety of pupils very seriously. Where there are concerns about a school’s ability to safeguard pupils, we will not hesitate to inspect".[30]

The school had an Ofsted monitoring visit in September 2018, and a previous inspection of the school in June 2017 had found that it required improvement.[31][32]

Tommy Robinson used photos taken from a 2017 news article about a teenage cancer patient from Surrey[15] to claim incorrectly that the Syrian refugee had previously attacked two schoolgirls.[23] Hours after spreading the claims during two Facebook live broadcasts, Robinson admitted to his followers that he had helped spread fake news. Claiming that he had been duped, he said: "I have been completely had, how embarrassing man".[33] The mother of a girl who had been alleged to have been attacked, posted to Robinson's Facebook page that Jamal was not the attacker.[34]

The Syrian refugee family's lawyers, Farooq Bajwa & Co, issued a letter to Robinson stating "We wish to place you on notice that our client intends to pursue legal action against you in respect of these contents of these publications and you will shortly be receiving formal pre-action correspondence in this respect".[33] CNN International reported Robinson had deleted the videos and admitted to posting a fake photograph falsely purporting to show violence by a Muslim gang.[35]

Robinson's supporters said that the letter warning about legal action "blocked" free speech. The lawyer responded by stating that Robinson "is being held to account for lying about a child" and "thinks it is a good idea to defame this 15-year-old boy and accuse him of being the author of his own bullying. It is actually sickening."[36]

Tasnime Akunjee of Farooq Bajwa and Co Solicitors, said: "It looks like Facebook has given him [Tommy Robinson] a special status. He was treated differently than the normal Facebook user. They have made editorial decisions about his posts and therefore became responsible and are in partnership with him".[37]

Facebook protects prominent figures such as Robinson from normal rules of moderation that would usually see a page removed after posting content that violates its rules. Solicitors have suggested that Facebook was therefore responsible for Robinson's posts and had given him "special treatment [that] seems to be financially driven."[22]