Post by Misstique on Sept 7, 2008 14:09:02 GMT 12
Cyber bully still free to lure teens into online suicide pacts
Sunday News | Sunday, 07 September 2008
A teenage girl exposed as luring her classmates into online suicide pacts still has access to computers and cellphones at school.
Last week, Sunday News revealed how the 15-year-old Christchurch Girls' High School student had targeted two of her classmates into a bizarre suicide pact after pretending to be one of the girl's "boyfriend."
The twisted teen had previously been caught trying to entice two Henderson High School cheerleaders into a suicide pact after creating fake identities purporting to be those of two boys and then using them to email the girls a detailed suicide instruction manual.
Sunday News can today reveal that the cyber bully - who can't be named for legal reasons - is still able to use school computers to access the internet during class time without supervision.
Christchurch Girls' High School principal Prue Taylor said: "There's nothing to do with computers or anything as far as we're concerned that we need to be worried about.
"We have software at our school to monitor what the students are using the internet for, but other than that we can't be watching every student all the time.
"Every student has a cellphone, we can't control cellphones. There are students in every school that you could say shouldn't have access to cellphones and computers because they are getting on sites that are pornographic or unacceptable in some way."
But students at the school say nothing is being done to stop the cyber bully from striking again.
"She could be plotting another attack on someone who I know and next time she may be successful," a student from the school told Sunday News in an email last week.
"Our school has not done anything about this situation and it is not acceptable."
A Child Youth and Family Services spokeswoman said the government department was unable to intervene with the child because she had not been charged by police in relation to her suicide hoaxes.
"While Child, Youth and Family may not become involved in cases like these through the Youth Justice system, there may be concerns about care and protection for the young people involved," the spokeswoman said.
"That said we would encourage the parents of the young people involved to contact us to see what support we and other agencies can offer to address the issues this young woman may be facing."