Phoebe inspires group to fight school bullying

A GROUP of students inspired by the life and death of Phoebe Prince has set up a group to fight bullying — and they hope to spread the message across the United States and beyond.

The group, backed by Phoebe’s aunt Eileen Moore, is calling itself Phoebe’s Messengers.

The message the students at the secondary school in Massachusetts — not Phoebe’s but one close by — want to spread is nothing less than to build communities free of bullying.

Phoebe, a 15-year-old originally from Co Clare who emigrated to the US, killed herself after suffering months of abuse at the hands of some students at her school in South Hadley. The first anniversary of her death was last week.

Her life and death is being compared to that of a 13-year-old girl from Longford, Chloe Coleman. Her grandfather claims that Chloe took her own life last week after being subjected to abuse and threats, verbal, physical and via text messages.

Students in Springfield, Massachusetts, joined this week with teachers and Ms Moore to launch Phoebe’s Messengers.

One student, Lorraine Switzer, created a pin which members of the group plan to wear.

“It’s a small sky-blue heart with ‘Phoebe’s Messengers’ abbreviated and white wings and kind of like a sense of hope, like the wings of hope,” said Lorraine.

She added that the angel wings were also “a tribute to Phoebe who is probably looking down on us right now”.

Ms Moore said: “We’re working together, we have businesses, teachers, counsellors. It’s going to be a many faceted programme and hope it will do a lot, a lot of good.”

Six teenagers have been charged in connection with incidents leading up to Phoebe’s death last January.

But in at least three of the cases, defence lawyers will ask for the charges to be dropped ahead of a status hearing on April 8.

Flannery Mullins, Sharon Valezquez and Ashley Longe have all been charged with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. Mullins and Valezquez have also been charged with stalking.

Prosecutors now must file a bill of particulars before March 1 giving more precise details of the exact charges against the three. This follows a demand by defence attorneys.