Survey suggests quarter of Jersey children are bullied

Jon Tarrant said the survey had found cyber bullying was a growing problem

A survey has suggested a quarter of children in Jersey are victims of bullying.

Jon Tarrant, internet safety officer for the Education department, said he had carried out a survey last year that found one in four children are bullied.

He said an increasing number were victims of cyber bullying - where they are harassed over the internet or on their mobile phones.

He has helped to set up the Cyber Mentors scheme in Jersey.

The scheme was started by Beat Bullying in the UK, which claimed that one in three children there are bullied.

Mr Tarrant said the scheme was oversubscribed in Jersey and about 120 young people had signed up, but just 64 of them had been trained to help their peers who are being bullied online.

He said: "We wanted to bring the training team over and get children from Jersey trained because it is the first step towards raising awareness about bullying and bullying problems in schools."

Mr Tarrant said some children in Jersey had hate websites set up about them.

"Unfortunately it is very easy to do, especially on Facebook where anybody can set up a group for any topic, and it can be a positive topic or it can be to poke fun at somebody.

"It can start off as poking fun and get out of hand, or it can be malicious right from the very start."