Girl, 17, ‘exposed to beheadings, shootings and porn’ joins smartphone legal action against government
A 17-year-old girl, who said she was exposed to disturbing content such as beheading videos, images of a young child shooting another child and porn, joined the lawsuit against the government.
Flossie McShea, 17, is among those backing two fathers’ request for a judicial review aimed at banning smartphones in schools altogether. She said she joined as a plaintiff because she felt the Department for Education (DfE) had failed to protect her and her other children from harm caused by phones during the school day.
Will Orr-Ewing and Pete Montgomery, both parents of school-aged children, wrote to education secretary Bridget Phillipson in July saying they intended to challenge the mandatory school phone ban, which was not included in safeguarding guidance for schools.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers warned Ms Phillipson that she was “endangering the nation’s children”.
Ms McShea, from Devon, said using a smartphone “completely changed my life from Year 7 onwards” and still leaves her thinking about the excessive content she was shown.
The teenager said: “I was exposed to pornography and violent videos such as beheading videos. I was sent a video of two young children finding a gun and one of them accidentally shooting the other. I had to go home.
“There’s been a lot of incidents like that, and a lot of my friends have had the same experiences. It’s all really happening in school because you get to see the live reactions. We’re all gathered here, so when you can get reactions from 30 kids in the classroom, people find it much more appealing to share these things online.”
“I think if I didn’t have a phone, and we didn’t have phones at school, I wouldn’t be exposed to things I wouldn’t want to be exposed to.”
Ms. McShea’s school has completely banned the use of smartphones in school buildings.
“I got on the school bus the other day and there was a group of 7th graders laughing and chatting together. I was so happy for them,” she said.
“We never experienced that because we were always looking down and scrolling.”
Mum-of-three Katie Moore, 43, also agreed with the claim after her daughter, now 18, said she was shown explicit images on phones in school locker rooms and was once exposed to a video of men masturbating when another student entered the school video chat room.
The 43-year-old, from Northampton, said it was “devastating” to hear what her daughter had been exposed to online.
“As a parent, it has been exhausting raising teenagers in a world that pushes us towards and becomes dependent on technology,” Ms. Moore said.
She added that she tried to delay giving her daughter a smartphone for as long as possible, but felt pressure to give up even though all her peers had smartphones.
Ms Moore believes a full legal ban on phones in school is the only solution and said ‘out of sight’ policies on phone use in schools do not go far enough.
Mr. Orr-Ewing and Mr. Montgomery are pursuing the forensic investigation under an organization they founded, called Generation Alpha CIC.
Lawyers will submit documents to the Supreme Court on Monday.
Under the former Conservative government, schools were given illegal instructions aimed at stopping phone use during the school day.
A survey by the Children’s Commissioner earlier this year found that 90 per cent of secondary schools and 99.8 per cent of primary schools already had policies in place to stop phone use during the school day.
The majority of secondary schools surveyed (79 percent) allowed students to bring phones but said the phone should be kept out of sight and not in use. Only 3.5 percent said students were not allowed to bring phones to school.
In July, Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Orr-Ewing said they had filed a freedom of information request with schools about security incidents involving phones and social media. They found that in one school’s case, 55 incidents were referred to social services, 17 of which were reported to the police.
Mr Montgomery said removing smartphones from schools was a “no-brainer”.
“This has to be the easiest decision in the world for the government to make,” he added. “But they didn’t, so we have no choice but to go to court.”
James Gardner, of Conrathe Gardner LLP, acting for the plaintiffs, said: “The government is well aware of the serious harm smartphones are causing to children in school settings. They had a golden opportunity to fix this with a national ban when they published protective guidance this autumn – but have decided to ignore the problem once again. Bridget Phillipson is endangering the nation’s children.”
A government spokesman said: “Phones have no place in our schools and leaders already have the power to ban them.
“We support headteachers to take the necessary steps, supported by clear guidance, to prevent disruption and also better protect children from harmful content through the Online Safety Act.”
