Our Saturday morning email features the very best news and exclusive content from our team of reporters Sign me up! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

An 11 year old boy has spoken bravely of the hurt of racist abuse in the playground from primary school pupils.

Ashley Davies is of mixed race ethnicity and goes to a primary school in West Cornwall, which Cornwall Live has chosen not to identify.

Yet instead of enjoying his last year of primary education, Ashley has been the subject of hateful comments from other children, including names such as “black idiot”, “slave” and the n-word.

He joined the school in September after the family moved back to Cornwall from Liverpool, to enjoy a life beside the sea.

He said: “It makes me feel kind of sad because I am just trying to make friends. I’ve had loads of comments from people who don’t want me there.”

He added about going to school: “When I wake up in the morning, it’s like a burden. But it shouldn’t be a chore really, it should just be going to school but every morning before going to school I feel nervous about what’s going to happen there.”

(Image: Greg Martin)

His parents Martin and Natalie Davies are at their wits end and confess they don’t know how to make the abuse stop. They have been in to see the head teacher numerous times and said they were angry at being told Ashley should think about how he reacts to the abuse.

Natalie said: “Since the day he started there, he’s had comment after comment. The school have said they talk to the other children but it keep happening again and again.

“Ashley is very placid and he’s never been in trouble. But not matter how hard he tries, he’s been abused and targeted. It’s not a very nice thing – he’s 11 years old.

(Image: Greg Martin)

“I am not saying all these kids are horrible racists but this is moulding my son now for how he is going to see the world. At the moment, he seems like nobody cares and everyone is going to see him as different.

“I think the school are trying but they don’t know what to do.”

Natalie herself, whose grandparents are originally from Jamaica, said she had been the subject of open racial abuse in the street while living in Cornwall.

“It’s constant,” she said. “I’ve been spat at in the street and I also get comments like: ‘You guys are alright because you work hard’.”

“I work as a carer and I was walking past a pub in Hayle a few weeks ago at about 9pm. I was going to care for someone’s grandmother and a group of men outside the pub shouted: ‘Look at the n***** nurse!”

They said Ashley has been deeply upset by the comments at school and his dad Martin added: “It’s just so unfair on him. The school doesn’t seem to do anything. It’s just not acceptable.”

Cornwall Live asked the school in question to comment but the head teacher declined, saying he could not comment on matters involving individual pupils.

Read the response to this story below: