Wickford woman 'shocked' as children hurl sexual comments at her

BBC News

24-06-2025

A woman said she was left "shocked" when primary schoolchildren hurled sexual and misogynistic comments at her while she was in her garden.Hollie Hardy, 26, from Wickford, Essex, was sunbathing when children from a school behind her home climbed a fence and harassed her. She filmed the incident and posted it to social media where more than 400,000 people viewed it.A spokesperson for the school involved said it was an "isolated incident" which it had investigated and taken "appropriate action".
"They started shouting all kinds of different sexual comments," Ms Hardy explained."It was one of those moments that you kind of don't know what to do so I just sat up in my chair and froze."At first I was shocked because they are so young - it's a primary school so you don't expect to have that sort of language coming from children."But then it turned to anger because I thought, I'm in my own garden, in the privacy of my own home, I shouldn't have to deal with that kind of thing."An off-duty Metropolitan Police officer intervened during the incident and spoke with children and staff.
'It's not OK'
The BBC has chosen not to publish the name of the school.Ms Hardy said she feared how the children involved would go on to treat women in adulthood.She continued: "If they are brave enough to say this sort of language to me, then what are they saying to the little girls on the playground?"Something needs to be done because it's not OK to be going through that, not in the privacy of your own home, not on the street, not by children and not by adults."We need to do something about it."
'Appropriate action'
"The behaviour in this isolated incident goes against our values of mutual respect, both within our school and the wider community," a spokesperson for the school said. "As soon as we were made aware of the situation, we immediately investigated and took appropriate action. "We will be speaking with all pupils to reiterate with them the standards we set for all those within our school."
Ms Hardy's social media post on the incident led to almost 1,000 comments, with many questioning why this was happening.Dr Beth Mosley, a consultant clinical psychologist, explained young people were being exposed more and more to harmful content online."A lot of this content is not representative of positive, healthy relationships," she said."So our young people are often getting a warped perception of what's acceptable and they're being exposed to content which is far beyond their developmental understanding."Dr Mosley said young men were often reproducing content from influencers they saw online "without recognising the harm it might be causing".She said "curious and non-judgemental" conversations were needed to help young people learn the consequences of the content they see.Dr Mosley added young people should be directed toward "more positive role models".
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