Racist attacks on special needs boy

A Cork mother has claimed this week that she no longer feels safe in her Glanmire home and that her son now lives in fear, having been the victim of two racially motivated attacks in as many years.

The woman, who moved to Cork from Cameroon over ten years ago, told the Cork Independent this week that her son has been attacked twice in two years at the same Cork city school.

She says that in February 2009, he was the victim of an assault on his school grounds which left him with loose teeth and mild injuries after being punched in the mouth.

Just four weeks ago, on November 11, she received a phone call from her son who has special needs, telling her that he had been assaulted again.

He explained that while he was playing soccer, a group of young boys started calling him "nigger".

“He told the teacher but the boys denied it," she said. She claimed the youths then shouted more insults at him, such as, 'Show off nigger, why don’t you go and bring more black people with you?'

According to her son, one of the three boys punched him repeatedly in the head leaving him with a fractured jaw which was later operated on at CUH. 

The assault has left her son isolated and living in fear.

“He loves soccer. He’s very good at it. But now, he is too afraid to play. He’s too afraid to go out. I’m so angry.”

“My son has special needs. He is a slow learner, he just needs some extra help in understanding things and he has never been confident. The only thing he cares about is football.

“Now he doesn’t go out any more. He doesn’t want to go to school. He’s afraid. Of course he is,” she said.

“I am an Irish citizen and so are my children. I have been in Cork since 2001.”

She sometimes hears racial remarks in buses. “People come up to me, laughing, and say, 'I bet you don’t have television or anything where you’re from'.

“The kids in the area where we live make noises and do monkey faces too sometimes when we go out to our car.

“I have had eggs thrown at my door and stones thrown at my windows. Once they even destroyed my garden,” she said.

She does not feel safe in her home and wants the racism towards her family in her area to stop. “I hope that someday they will tired of it and go away.

“I have contacted NASC (the Irish Immigrant Support Centre) and a support group for victims of crime. I want people to know that this is happening and I want it to stop,” she said.

Gardaí at Mayfield confirmed to the Cork Independent that they are investigating the incident at the school and that a file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

When contacted by the Cork Independent, the school in question refused to comment.

The woman's identity is being witheld for legal reasons but is known to the Editor.