By JESSICA JERREAT
An 18-year-old student is suing her former school for allegedly not taking her claims of bullying seriously over a year and a half. Isabella Hankey, known as Belle, claims she went from being a happy student to suffering such anxiety over the death threats scratched into the wall of the school locker room, that she suffered a
pulmonary embolism. Belle has filed a $2 million federal civil rights lawsuit against the towns of Concord and Carlisle, the Concord-Carlisle school district, and three school administrators, alleging that the school did nothing to stop the bullying, according to The Boston Globe.
'I hated walking in the halls, thinking that you could be walking by the person that hates you. It’s terrifying. You think that it could be your friends, a stranger, anyone,' she said. The bullying, by a still unknown person, began on Belle's 17th birthday, when she drove to school in a car her parents had bought her as a gift. She told Boston.com that when she finished class she returned to the parking lot to find three deep scratches on her car. A few months later, she found feces smeared on her car and, on another occasion, a vulgar word scratched into her bumper. 'I was in shock. It was disgusting. Who is physically capable of doing something so disgusting?' she said.
Belle claimed that her school did nothing to investigate and, when her parents asked for cameras to be installed, they were told it would be too expensive. When she told the assistant principal about the slur carved into her car he allegedly told her, 'I don't know what you want me to do', according to Fox 25. The bullying soon took a more sinister turn, when she found the words 'Kill Belle' scratched into the locker room wall in June last year. Days later, the teenager found another threat carved into the wall that read: 'Belle's dead at 9:15'. When she saw the first death threat, Belle said she was so scared she sat crouched in the toilet stall and was too scared to move. By October the anxiety led to Belle suffering a pulmonary embolism, which doctors said had been caused by stress.
Her parents claim their phone calls and e-mails to the school were often not returned. They became so concerned for their daughter's safety that they hired a private investigator and fitted cameras in their daughter’s car. The police were contacted, but they told the parents the school was the best place to deal with the bullying. Belle's mother, Debra Hankey, said: 'She needs to know why this wasn't taken care of. She needs to know why they let her down, why they didn't protect her.' At the time, names of several people who could be behind the threats were put forward, including a group of girls known as the 'Sexy Seven'. However, it is claimed nothing was done to follow up the leads.
'It’s been two years this fall and it’s unbelievable that no one knows,' she told the Boston Globe. 'When the death threats started happening, I saw girls going into the office all the time saying, "I don’t know if I feel safe in here".'
Belle became so anxious at school that she completed her classes at Rivers and Revolutions, a progam that allowed her to study in a building away from the main school. Even then, the harassment continued. Just before returning after the summer, she found the word 'Ready' carved into her car's bumper. In response to the lawsuit, Concord-Carlisle High School Principal Peter Badalament said in a statement: '[The] school district cannot comment on a complaint which it has not even seen'. He added that the school took bullying seriously. Concord Schools deputy superintendent John Flaherty told Fox 25: 'We take the issue of harassment very seriously ... the district is committed to providing a safe learning environment for all of our students. Beyond that we have no comments at this time.'
The 18-year-old, who plans to study at the University of Mississippi, said the suit was a way to try to prevent others suffering from the same experience.
'I’m definitely still carrying it with me. Hopefully this will help me have some closure on it,' she said.
