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Boy fights for life after bully's air hose 'prank'

The Local Italy
The Local Italy - [email protected]
Boy fights for life after bully's air hose 'prank'
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A 14-year-old boy is fighting for his life in Naples after a bully blasted a compressed air hose up his backside because he was “too fat”. Anti-bullying campaigners are now calling on the government to introduce penalties for bullies.

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In a violent attack that has enraged anti-bullying campaigners, the boy was first made to pull down his trousers by three alleged attackers.  

One of them, a 24-year-old man, then allegedly pushed a hose used in a car wash up his backside, causing lacerations to his intestines and serious bleeding, Corriere della Sera reported.

The victim, said to have long been a victim of bullying, was rushed to a hospital in Naples, where he was operated on and is reported to be in a “serious condition”.

The 24-year-old and his two accomplices have been detained on accusations of attempted murder.

Relatives of the alleged perpetrator said the attack was just intended as a “prank” and they did not realize how much damage the compressor could do.

“It was a stupid prank, and it’s right that they should pay, but it was not attempted murder,” they told Il Mattino.

“They’re all good kids who make fun of each other. They did not understand that the compressor, with that power, could do such damage. For them it was a game.”

But anti-bullying campaigners have called on Italy’s interior minister Angelino Alfano to introduce penalties for bullies.

Mario Campanella, the president of the Peter Pan non-profit organization, said “at least 200,000 bullies in Italy roam freely” due to there being no anti-bullying legislation.

“The violence suffered by the fourteen-year-old from Naples makes us cry, and angry: bullies, without rules and sanctions, move freely in our country,” Campanella said in a joint statement with Donatella Marazziti, a professor of psychiatry at Pisa University.

“They’re fed by violent games and a total absence of sanctions.”

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