Mum takes son out of Moray school after alleged ‘racial hatred’ incidents

A mother has removed her six-year-old mixed-race son from a Moray school and claimed he has been the victim of “racial hatred”.

London-born Marianna Rietsch, 34, says some pupils at New Elgin Primary have bullied Leon, whose father is Jamaican.

She claimed taunting about the colour of his skin had escalated into violence.

“The bullies are aged between five and 11 and the incidents are happening in the neighbourhood and in the playground,” she added.

A meeting involving the school’s head teacher, Ellie Pirie, Grampian Police and social workers will be held later this month to investigate her allegations.

But Mrs Rietsch, who is a business studies student at Moray College UHI, said she now planned to leave the area regardless of the outcome of the discussions.

The family moved to Moray from London in 2006 to be closer to Mrs Rietsch’s family at Forres.

She claimed the head teacher had refused to accept that the alleged bullying was racially motivated.

She has also lodged a complaint against a police officer, alleging he refused to log it as a crime when Leon was beaten by another child with a stick.

“He asked where I was from and when I said London he told me I should ‘expect this kind of thing up here’ because hardly anyone had coloured skin”, she claimed.

Grampian Police insisted last night its officers were investigating the reported incidents.

Moray Council’s social work department has also been criticised. Mrs Rietsch alleged staff took 10 days to respond to her calls. She claimed a social worker refused to come to see her and told her name-calling was not a crime.

Yesterday, the mother-of-two, of Pinefield Crescent, Elgin, said she was moving back to England.

She added: “I don’t want to live in a place where everybody thinks it’s OK to call my son names and where the very services that are here to help us do not care.

“My son is kicked and hit in the playground and being told he’s the colour of walking excrement and the head teacher is saying nothing like that could happen in her school. Two boys in our neighbourhood held him down and put a lighter to his hair, threatening to burn him to death. This is racial hatred, in the eyes of the law it’s a crime.”

The Grampian Racial Equality Council (Grec) has set up the multi-agency meeting which will be held on June 28.

Agency case worker Ron Falconer said: “A case conference has been organised and hopefully once that’s convened and a number of tasks have been set we will be able to resolve this to Marianna’s satisfaction.”

Superintendent Sharon Milton said Grampian Police were working with other agencies, including Grec and the local authority, to try to resolve the situation.

She added: “We take all such incidents seriously and acknowledge that racism can have a very harmful effect for the individuals, and have a much wider community impact. There is no place for racism in Moray and we will continue to deal appropriately with all incidents reported to us.”

A Moray Council spokes-man said: “In view of the fact that a multi-agency meeting has already been arranged it would be inappropriate for us to comment.”

New Elgin Primary School head teacher Mrs Pirie said she was unable to comment because speaking to the press was against Moray Council protocol.

Official figures have revealed the number of racist incidents recorded by the Grampian force has soared by 58% in the space of 12 months.

Despite a fall in the number of racist incidents across Scotland between 2007-08 and 2008-09, there was an increase from 391 to 616 in the north-east, although Moray’s figure fell from 38 to 30.