Kuils River mother speaks out after son's earlobe is bitten off in school fight

A Kuils River mother is deeply distraught after doctors managed to reattach her son’s earlobe after it was ripped off by an attacker at Sarepta Primary School during a fight. The mother, who asked not to be identified in order to protect her son’s identity, said she wanted to raise concerns about school fights after her son was attacked inside the school toilets last week.

It is alleged that the learner was lured to the toilet by a group of children on the school grounds who called him to the ablution facilities. The mother described in horror and shock after hearing that her son’s attacker bit and ripped off a piece of his earlobe and merely spat out the human flesh after the bloody incident.

“The incident happened on 20 March. My son is in Grade 7 and so is the attacker,” she explained. “There are different stories about what led up to this and it’s very confusing but I can only tell what my son told me. “He explained that on the day of the attack he was on his way out of the school grounds when he was called by a group of children who told him to go to the bathroom.

He said they were persistent and he went and this is when he came across this boy and a prefect. “He explained that the prefect took his hand and put it on the other boy’s face and the same was done to him and that is how the fight started.”

The aggrieved mother said her husband was informed about the incident while waiting outside of the schoolgrounds for his son and received a call from the staff. “They told him to come inside and that is when they explained there was a fight and my son’s ear was bitten off,” she added.

She described in horror what took place: “What is so shocking is that the attacker allegedly clutched his arms, took a bite of the ear and just spat out the earlobe. This level of violence is very concerning and my young son recovered the piece of the ear on the bathroom floor.” The learner was rushed to the local Netcare hospital where doctors were able to reattach the earlobe. His irate parents said when here turned to school this week, he was made to write his exams isolated from his class-mates and that there was no disciplinary process as yet.

“There was no disciplinary action taken against the attacker and he is the one who should have been writing in isolation and is clearly a danger to other learners. We are upset that no action has been taken,” she added.

Western Cape Education Department (WCED) spokesperson, Bronagh Hammond, said they were aware of the incident and that two meetings were already held including a follow up meeting which is scheduled Friday with the learner’s parents.

“Thereafter, a decision on how to proceed will be made. This can be done restoratively, or through the school’s disciplinary processes,” she explained. “Both learners were given opportunity to write the assessment and be fetched immediately after they were done writing.

The victim’s parents chose to keep their child at home as he was obviously in recovery, with completion of assessment tasks on another date as to the rest of the class. There is nothing unusual about this. There had been no prior incidents involving these learners.”

Cape Argus