‘I was stabbed aged 15 and have suffered lifelong trauma – schools need to do more to protect their pupils’ | EUROtoday

“I live in constant fear of a bad feeling, it’s a psychological scar that won’t ever be healed”, Natashia Lee explains as she recalls the traumatic time she was stabbed seven times at school by her childhood bullies.

The teenager woke on the morning of 10 November 2005 with a sense of dread in her stomach after suffering nightmares about her tormentors who denigrated her for her perceived love of heavy-metal music.

Later that day, she would be stabbed seven times after exiting the dinner queue at Collingwood College in Surrey by three girls, requiring extensive eye surgery after being injured by a pair of scissors. Two would go on to receive community orders, while her stabber would be detained for over three years.

Now 20 years later, Ms Lee, then known as Natashia Jackman, has been left horrified after a spate of recent school stabbings which are all too reminiscent of her own experience. Last month, a 15-year-old pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Harvey Willgoose, also 15, who was killed at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield.

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A 14-year-old girl was also handed 15 years in detention after a knife rampage at her school in Ammanford, which left two teachers and a fellow pupil with stab wounds from her father’s multi-tool.

Due to the trauma of her own experience and her parents’ horror at the school’s inability to protect her from her bullies, Ms Lee relocated to the US to continue her education.

Despite her physical wounds healing, the mental scars remained and she soon began to suffer from PTSD and flashbacks. Not only was she left traumatised, her mother later took her own life having believed she had “failed” in her duties by sending her to school on that horrific day.

“I lost all faith in humanity. I’d hear a British accent and I would freeze,” she said. “I do sometimes wonder if my bullies have kids, and do they worry about school crimes and look back with the hindsight of adulthood at their roles as perpetrators?”, she said.

Now living in Yorkshire with her two children, she is “terrified” for the next generation.

“Policy has not modified sufficient,” Ms Lee told The Independent. “Preventative measures, the place are they? My greatest concern is that when it occurred to me, the one social media we had was MSN and MyArea.

“Society has now evolved and we’re looking at a generation now that lack empathy and compassion as they see the world through the lens of social media.”

Since returning to the UK after a educating stint in Thailand and as a charity employee in Kenya, Ms Lee has established her personal firm ESG Pro, which she now hopes to utilise to enhance circumstances throughout the UK training system.

ESG Pro is a compliance consultancy that reinvests 20 per cent of consumer spend into social impression, beginning with faculty security via the flagship initiative School Impact Project.

The programme is designed to ship security enhancements, environmental upgrades, and governance assist to varsities — totally funded via business-sector partnerships.

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“Schools don’t have funding for pencils, let alone having knife arches. For me, this isn’t just work — it’s personal.

“I know what it feels like to walk into a school and wonder if you’re safe. I’ve seen the gaps, the vulnerabilities, and the heartbreaking limitations schools face because of budget constraints.”

Aimed to stop weapons from being introduced onto the playground, knife arches have more and more been proposed as a possible technique to make faculties safer.

However, with a single-walk via detector costing as a lot as £7,500 and faculties having to suit the invoice, it’s an unattainable expense for a lot of state faculties which have budgeting constraints.

While stabbing incidents in faculties stay comparatively uncommon, the previous youngsters’s commissioner for England stated in February that it was a “national crisis that needed a national response”.

According to a House of Commons analysis doc revealed in late January, within the yr to the tip of June 2024 there have been 19,903 possession of a knife or offensive weapon offences in England and Wales that resulted in a warning or conviction.

Children aged 10 to 17 had been the perpetrators in 18 per cent of the circumstances.

“With the turnover rate of teachers, children aren’t forming the same bonds with them that existed years ago, and that lack of personal relationship means students don’t know who to turn to,” Ms Lee said.

“We have to have extra faculty counsellors in place, there must be some extent of contact when issues are getting robust and the psychological well being assist is so vital.”

She has now partnered with the Ben Kinsella Trust, which tackles knife crime via training, and has secured 19 faculties to sponsor with funding by way of her challenge.

“I want to do something more with my story because I survived,” she stated.

“I’m not healed, I have never healed because I am partly stuck as a 14-year-old girl. If I could do something with my life and career and I say I’ve made one school safer, I can say it meant something.”

If you’re experiencing emotions of misery, or are struggling to manage, you possibly can converse to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), e mail jo@samaritans.orgor go to the Samaritans web site to seek out particulars of your nearest department.