If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Press charges?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Okay, so I was beaten up at school today. The girl shamshed my face into a wall about four times, and I'm pretty sure my nose is broken and the whole left side of my face is swollen.
I didn't hit her or anything.
My dad says I should press charges, and get her done for assult. But... I'm not sure. And I'm not sure how to go about it either.
Help? x
I didn't hit her or anything.
My dad says I should press charges, and get her done for assult. But... I'm not sure. And I'm not sure how to go about it either.
Help? x
0
Comments
Have you gone to have your injuries checked out? I believe the first step is having the damage checked out and probably get some kind of injury report and then reporting the incident to the police.
I'm sure there are people more knowledgable about the process than I am though. Good luck, whatever you do.
That said, it depends on the school and the situation.
As a starting point, if you think your nose may be broken, then you need to go to A&E and get it looked at, a long with the rest of your injuries.
If this happened at school, then you probably need discussion with your head teacher, form tutor and head of year before you go back to school to discuss what happened and how recurrence can be prevented. If it's the case that it was completely out of the blue, then there's obviously some problem going on in the other girls life that needs to be dealt with and her being in school may not be the safest thing for either her or the other students.
Meeting with your parents and school is probably the best first step.
if you do decide to press charges the rundown is basically this.
1)Firstly, are you willing to attend court. If you're not, then don't even go there.
2)Assuming you are, take photographs of your injuries, make sure the photo is properly time stamped. Print them once you've taken them.
3)A PC will come around to your house to take a statement, now in my force this should be within the hour, or you will be given a chance to make an appointment as your parents have to be there.
4)The PC will also take his/her own photos.
5)A file will be prepared and the offender arrested.
6)Depending on her prior history and what she is charged with (most likely an ABH in this case) she will either get a reprimand, final warning (both types of caution) or she will be required to attend court. Whilst this is going on she may be bailed to stay away from you.
Now as a Schools officer I'd be stepping in here to enforce the conditions within school, or make my own recommendations as to what to do with her, I'd also collate the evidence from school and give it to the investigating officer. Personally, I think 5 suspension days for breaking someone's nose is a bit lenient but it is upto the teachers. Before the suspension ends your parents are allowed to make representations to the school that the punishment isn't serious enough. If they do this it needs to be done before the girl returns. Once she's back, it's too late. She's already been punished.
Now the whole process should ideally be fairly quick. We had an arrest for assault a couple of weeks ago. Offence was comitted on Friday (only a common assault) and the offender was arrested and cautioned on the Monday as we were off duty that weekend. Had we been at work she'd have been dealt with the day after. Now we are fairly efficient, there's no doubt in my mind it'll take longer, but no more than 4 or 5 days.
The doctor said he thinks my nose will be okay, but that if when the swelling goes down it still doesn't look right I will need to go to my GP and they'll refer me to hospital.
Because there's not a proper mark on my face, will she not get done for assault? x
Eurgghhh I can not be bothered
You'll find that those people won't have much going on in their lives outside of the school environment, and once school finishes, they have even less going on in their lives. In response the original question, you should definitely press charges if you're worried that it will happen again. Even if you're not worried about it happening to you again right now, you should still consider it seen as you've been assaulted, and your assailant probably won't be deterred from repeating her crime by the week of school she'll get in reward. You might prevent her assaulting somebody else by pressing charges.
I really think u need to be concerned about urself. This girl didn't think twice about u when she beat u up or the repercussions, so why r u? Press Charges or at least take pics to collaborate evidence of what she is doing
Good luck Hun
Photographs assist when it comes to matters of what charge to bring and then can also play a role in helping the court to decide an appropriate sentence.
It must be your decision whether you wish to make a formal complaint to the Police and Whowhere's advice is good advice (and much better than I can give, given we have a different definition of assault North of the Border)
Then what you have is a common assault, in which case the offender will likely get a caution. The last person I arrested strangled another girl she'd been bullying. That was caught on CCTV and her reaction was quite funny showing it her when she denied doing anything wrong.
Do you have a schools officer? The alternative to her being arrested is that he step in and deal with it, and all the hangers on who have started making things more difficult.
I deal with minor assaults like this all the time, and facebook/mobile phone bullying as that's my job. We run something called restorative justice, which is where once she has been punished she has to sit with you, and your parents. You and your parents explain to her what youre feeling, how the assault has effected you and about all the other shit that is going on. Generally she will then have to explain in detail why she did what she did and apologise.
It sounds very airy fairy but it gets surprisingly good results, especially in bullying cases where the victim just wants to be left alone. The offender sees the harm they're causing (people rarely break down in front of the offender) and usually realises they're being a total douche, and they stop. With the threat that if they carry on they get arrested.
I'm going in to school today, but there's so much shit all over facebook I know I'm just going to leave as soon as I get there. Everyone's going to be saying so much shit, and I'm not dealing with it. Right now, I just want to curl up in a little ball and die. I was so close to self harming last night, and I text my boyfriend, and he just said if I self harm then me and him are over... so, I've lost my friends, I've lost my rep, and now I'm loosing him
Yes, it counts. Actual bodily harm there.
I can't help you any more than I have done, I do know that going it alone as you seem to be trying to do isn't necessarily the best option, especially if you're getting shit from all angles.
As for facebook, block them or stop using facebook. it's a fucking nightmare, and the bullies make great use of it.
I don't even know if I'm going to be able to report it now, as I wont be able to until Monday which seems too late to me x
The police work 24/7....you don't need to wait until Monday.
And Kat, I'm not all bad really
They can't do anything because she's only 14, and therefore under the age of criminal responsibility. BULLSHIT. One of my friends is 13, and has now got a criminal record that wont be wiped till she's 18, because she "assaulted" someone.
They said I can go down to the station on monday and speak to them, but they wont do anything more than they said they'd do on the phone. (they said they'd "document" what she's done, but wouldn't actually speak to her.)