School 'hanging': Boy bullied

2005-07-21 21:38

Philip de Bruin

Johannesburg - "My biggest fear is that my child was the victim of bigger children who bullied him.

"He is a gentle child who cried easily and since his father's suicide be became the target of other children."

A "broken" Mrs Daleen Smit of Pretoria spoke of her child, Jovan, 10, as he lay next to her in the intensive care unit of the Bougainville hospital in Pretoria on Thursday.

She told of the "terrible shock and horror" when she heard that the unconscious Jovan was hanging from his school blazer on the burglar-proofing of a toilet at the Hermanstad primary school in Pretoria.

"The only one who will be able to tell me the truth of what led to this tragedy, is Jovan himself.

"I will not believe anything before he surfaces from this coma and tells me."

Hanging

Jovan, who attended the after-school centre at the school every afternoon until his mother could fetch him after work, was found by a teacher on Tuesday afternoon hanging with his jacket around his neck.

He was already in a coma. Since then he has been fighting for his life. He can't breathe and is attached to life-support apparatus.

His brain is badly swollen and doctors told Mrs Smit they were fighting to prevent the swelling from affecting his brainstem.

Should this happen, Jovan will be brain-dead.

"Jovan is a gentle child and he was continuously subjected to bullying.

"I have been told it was a game that led to him being hanged, but I want to hear this from his own mouth," Mrs Smit said.

The school's principal, Carel van Dyk, said on Thursday the reports he had received indeed pointed to a game that was played in the boys' toilet.

Suicide

"There is absolutely nothing that indicates that Jovan wanted to commit suicide or that he was bullied by other children or tied to the burglar-proofing.

"As a matter of fact, the teacher at the centre warned him and a friend shortly before the incident to stop hitting each other with their jackets."

Mrs Smit said she was "tremendously grateful" for the help and support she had received from Van Dyk and other school staff.

They even held a special prayer session for Jovan and regularly visit him in hospital.

A second brain scan was done on Jovan on Thursday afternoon.

This indicated that the swelling of the brain had remained unchanged.

- Beeld