Social Services Called After Schoolboy Said He Wants To ‘Fight Terrorists’

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Social Services Called After Schoolboy Said He Wants To 'Fight Terrorists'

The parents of an eight-year-old schoolboy are furious after his school bought in social services because he had written that he wanted to ‘fight terrorists’.

He wrote his comments after learning about the Syrian refugee crisis in class, but his parents say they were grilled by his head teacher over fears that he may have been radicalised.

The young boy is is the latest child to get caught up in the new duties of schools to report suspicious behaviour.

The Telegraph reports:

Louise Aspinall and Mark Atkinson, from the Wirral, Merseyside, were outraged by the claim they say was made about their son Rhys and said he made the “childish” comment because he “wanted to help people”.

Mr Atkinson says he was summoned by the headmaster of St Michael and All Angels Primary School to explain his son’s actions.

Social Services Called After Schoolboy Said He Wants To 'Fight Terrorists'

The family allege they were also told Rhys was playing inappropriate and violent computer games after Rhys admitted to his teacher he liked to play on his Xbox at home.

Mr Atkinson said: “Rhys had a lecture at school last week about the migrant crisis and he came home and started asking me about it.

“The next day he wrote in class that he wanted to fight terrorists – it was just a childish thing and he didn’t mean anything by it.

“Then I was called in by the headteacher to talk about what Rhys had written.

“I think it was just an overreaction and was completely inappropriate, I have no grievance with the school though, I think this has greater implications for the country as a whole.”

Both parents have now received a letter from Wirral Council’s social services department stating their son had made “comments in school in relation to terrorism”.

The letter also addressed concerns Rhys was playing an adults-only game which featured violence – but his mother said the game in question, Hitman: Blood Money, is owned by her partner and her son is not allowed to play it.

The couple also claim staff at Rhys’s school informed Mark that several schools in the area had been visited by anti-terrorism police and the children were told to look out for signs of radicalisation.

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