http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/stor...ws/news2.shtml
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Tom learned boxing to beat the bullies..but he wasn't a fighter
By Paul Lewis
ON the right of this page is a picture of a gentle-looking little boy looking awkward in a pair of boxing gloves. Below that, touching lines from his glowing school report.
Look at them both closely. Because his grieving mum wants you to.
For together they destroy the ancient myth that the way to beat brutal bullies is for well-behaved, sensitive children like Thomas Thompson to try to stand up to them.
Eleven-year-old Thomas took his own life last week after a terrifying final school morning which his mother Sandra timetables in harrowing detail today.
He never lived to learn that the News of the World had won an important victory in our campaign to stamp out the evil of bullying—the announcement of a special government Commissioner for Children.
But today the mum he loved so much backs our demands to the hilt.
And she reveals how in despair she and her partner Geoff did what so many worried parents of bullied children do—and encouraged Thomas to defend himself.
"My beautiful son is gone now, and all of his dreams and hopes—even though I tried absolutely everything to help him," sobs 32-year-old Sandra. "At one point we even took him to have boxing lessons.
"I suppose in a way it was to try to toughen him up but he was such a caring, loving boy and he didn't like violence. He enjoyed the exercise—but he simply wasn't a fighter."
Sensitive
Thomas's final report from his primary school last summer is evidence of that. A report to mist the eyes of any proud parent. Peppered with heart-warming adjectives.
"Thomas is a pleasant, sensitive and intelligent boy who is always eager to help his teachers," it reads.
"His gentle and mature attitude made him an ideal candidate for a Reception-Year 6 link-up programme—a responsibility that Thomas accepted with great conscientiousness.
"He has worked extremely hard all year and thoroughly deserves his very good SATS scores. I have really enjoyed teaching Thomas this year."
But tragically, such gifts can also make children like Thomas sitting targets for vile bullying—especially at senior school.
In Thomas's case his tormentors turned the first-year pupil's bus rides to Wallasey School, Merseyside, into a nightmare—hitting him, spitting on him, choking him with his tie.
What he suffered was so traumatic it gave the lad—who had an eight-year-old sister Alex—a phobia about getting on any bus, not just the school's.
"Only last month he came home and they had taken a pen and scribbled all over his shirt while he was waiting for the bus," says Sandra.
"He told me what the bullies did to him. The problem was that most of it happened outside the class away from the teachers.
"I offered to take him to school but he said the kids would think he was a mummy's boy. The school knew he was frightened to get on the bus, but because he was too scared to name names they did nothing."
Ironically, the day before Sandra was to have a showdown with teachers about the bullying was to be the last of Thomas's brief life. This is what happened:
9am: Thomas, too frightened to get the bus to school, wanders the streets of New Brighton, four miles from his home.
11.15am: He is spotted by his head of year who is driving to an appointment. He orders Thomas to school.
Thomas pleads with him to take him in his car, but the teacher tells him to get the bus—"the one thing he absolutely dreaded," says Sandra.
Thomas catches an ordinary bus—only to find some of his bullies sitting there. He is driven off it.
1.30pm: The school phones shop assistant Sandra at work to tell her Thomas is missing. She is asked to come in for a meeting about his truancy the next day.
4.10pm: Worried Sandra has kept ringing home and finally Thomas answers after making his way home.
Overdose
She tells him she's going to see the teachers. He cries. "I will never forget the pain in his voice. I told him that when I got home we could sit down and talk it all through," says Sandra. The phone call lasts an hour.
6.30pm: Sandra gets home from work and finds her son dead on his bed from an overdose of painkillers.
"I just walked into his bedroom and saw him lying there and his lips were blue," says Sandra. "All I can say is that I hope no parent ever has to go through what I did that night."
Now she is calling for dedicated anti-bullying officials to be placed in every school in Britain so that children will have someone, apart from teachers, to turn to.
"All I can hope for is that something good can come from Thomas's death," says Sandra, clutching one of the teddies he used to buy her as presents from his pocket money.
"If there had been somebody official he could turn to in the school then maybe he would be here today.
"I will miss Thomas so much. He was a loving, bright, intelligent boy with so much potential.
"But I want other parents to realise that it doesn't only matter how well your child is doing inside the classroom, it also matters what happens to them before and after the school bell rings."
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