GLEBE, Australia, June 18 (UPI) -- Anti-bullying policies at his school failed to protect an Australian teenager driven to take his own life by persecution on- and offline, a coroner said Friday.
Deputy New South Wales Coroner Malcolm MacPherson recommended that schools with more than 500 students should have fulltime counselors, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. He said the state needs clear policies on when police should be informed about school violence.
Alex Wildman, a student at Kadina High School in Lismore, was 14 when he killed himself in July 2008.
The boy had transferred to Kadina in Lismore four months before his death. MacPherson said he had also been bullied at a Sydney high school.
Alex was called names online and in school and subjected to physical assault, MacPherson said. He said teachers apparently did not realize what was happening until two days before his suicide.
A week before his suicide, a schoolmate wrote online: "I'm only gonna keep bashing him till he learns."
After that, Alex was assaulted three times, MacPherson said. An onlooker used a cellphone to record the last beating but a deputy principal deleted it instead of showing it to police.
