A Prince George father is frustrated with what he says is inaction by authorities against a boy who has been bullying his teenaged daughter.
"He's breaking the rules and the school doesn't care and we're having a hard time getting the legal system to do anything about it," he said this week.
According to the father, the boy had been tormenting his daughter for some time when, in April 2017, he pulled enough hair off the back of her head to leave a bleeding wound and then followed her out to the school bus where he tried to slam a window down on her fingers. When she confronted the boy, he threatened to stab her to death, according to the father.
When his daughter came home and told him what happened, he called the police and then the principal. "I take threats to my daughter's life seriously," he said.
The boy was suspended for five days but continues to attend the same high school. The girl, meanwhile, was so distraught she refused to attend class for the remaining two months of the school year. Dissatisfied with the penalty, the father took the issue to court in hopes of forcing the boy to attend another school.
But the best he could get was an order preventing him from getting any closer than three metres of her while on school property and 50 metres while off the property and securing the order took a further 10 months.
Moreover, he claimed the boy has been flouting the terms with impunity.
"Now that it's in place, nobody wants to enforce it," the father said.
The order includes a caveat - it provides for "incidental contact" while at school although he still must not remain within three metres of the girl. The father said that creates a "grey area," which he contends has made the order meaningless.
Meanwhile, he said his daughter continues to be a target of the boy's intimidation. It has affected her marks, he added.
"We've been fighting this for a year now, and it's just so frustrating to see her struggle like that," he said. "She's a smart kid but she's so stressed out about this boy hurting her that she can't concentrate."
School district superintendent Marilyn Marquis-Forster declined to comment about the specific case due to privacy issues but maintained that whenever court-ordered conditions are imposed on a student "we bend over backwards to ensure that the school environment is respectful of that."
As to whether or not a student can be forced to transfer to another school, Marquis-Forster said the School Act enables school districts to bar anyone who is deemed to be unsafe. But she said it's part of a system of progressive discipline.
The matter could end up going back to court.
The father said the boy may have been caught on the school's surveillance cameras violating terms imposed on him by the court and by the school twice in one day. In one instance, he stood outside her classroom and in the other he followed the girl out to the bus then rode off on his bike rather than leaving the building through a side exit as required by the school.
The father said the boy also walked up to the daughter as she sat a a picnic table during lunchtime and "looked right in her face and just stayed there pretending to talk to a friend. And as soon as my daughter got up to leave, he left."
However, he said. the motion-sensored cameras deployed at that part of the school did not activate.
The father said he was not allowed to view the footage due to privacy issues but it has been seized by police. Whether it will be enough for the court to impose a tougher order on the boy remains to be seen.
"I just wish people would stand up for their kids more and were able to do more," he said. "We're stuck between a rock and a hard place."
