Fledgling Karen Is Paraded As Mouthpiece By Cynical Pressure Group...

A 17-year-old girl who says she was exposed to horrific images and videos including porn, a shooting and a beheading on a smartphones during the school day has joined a legal action against the education secretary.

Did she come into her school and show them to her then? No, Reader, she's simply failed to ban them, preferring to let heads take the decision they think fit.

Flossie McShea, from Devon, says she also received threatening messages while at school, as she put her name to a judicial review in an attempt to get smartphones banned in schools in England.

Did she do this entirely off her own bat, I wonder, or was she coerced into it? Sounds a bit like grooming to me. 

Will Orr-Ewing and Pete Montgomery first notified the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, in July that they would pursue legal action, arguing that current guidance, which allows headteachers to decide how smartphones are used, is unlawful and unsafe for children.

Mainly because of the children themselves: 

“Videos were going around all the time,” McShea recalls of her time at secondary school from year 7 onwards. “My parents were strict at home but at school people can airdrop you videos or show you their screen without invitation, to see your reaction. “My school had a ‘see it, hear it, lose it’ policy, but in reality we just used them under the desk, in the toilets, during lunch break, in the playground, on the bus, even in the corridors. It was impossible for the teachers to stop us.

Just as it'll be impossible for this legislation to ever stop them - they'll just do it outside of school. After all, if they have someone's phone number, they can reach them from anywhere in the world.

“The thing that affected me the most was a video of two young children playing with a gun. One shot the other accidentally and she died. We were getting off the bus and a friend came over to me with it on her phone. I had to go home early that day. I was so shocked I couldn’t sleep. I still think about that video three years later.”

Sounds to me as if your main beef is with your so-called friend. Maybe choose better friends?  

James Gardner of Conrathe Gardner LLP, acting for the claimants, said: “The government is well aware of the serious harms caused to children as a result of smartphones in school settings. They had a golden opportunity to put it right with a national ban when they issued safeguarding guidance this autumn – but they decided to ignore the problem once again. Bridget Phillipson is putting the nation’s children in harm’s way.”

Translation: 'Money and fame, give it to me!'