Shock as primary kids shown ‘sick’ hanging video at Hallowe’en disco

Parents have been left in shock at the incident, which happened at Southwood Primary School in Glenrothes in front of children aged 5-7.

One parent says his child has been left traumatised and has even had trouble sleeping after Wednesday’s incident.

Fife Council say it was simple human error that over a minute’s worth of gruesome videos were shown instead of some singing lanterns.

Parent Stephen Gell, who has a five-year-old daughter who attended the disco, said: “My wife was in the room at the time, she was facing away from it, then she noticed my daughter becoming upset, and turned round and saw what was happening.

They started with the display and it was singing lanterns and then changed over to someone hanging themselves and somebody being stabbed with a knife and a set of scissors.

“It was a silhouette, but it was very very clear as to what was going on.

“It showed him making the noose, putting it round his neck, standing on the chair, shaking the chair, then coming off it and shaking and then being still. It was quite graphic.

The stabbing video came after the hanging one.

“They stopped it, but there were a lot of kids who were deeply upset. My daughter won’t be left alone now. She’s not sleeping and she’s been heavily affected.

“She’s been up several times, she won’t go into her own bed if she’s on her own.

“Mistakes happen, I really don’t blame the DJ. If a kid takes a DVD into the school on the last day of term, the teacher checks it to make sure it’s suitable.

“Those sort of checks obviously weren’t done as we see what’s happened.

“I think there’s a duty of care from the school’s perspective, and they should be checking everything. Why that wasn’t done, I have no idea.”

“The school’s apologised, but there’s no talk of an investigation or what they plan to do to stop things like this happening in future.

“It calls into question their ability to safeguard the children if that sort of thing’s going to happen.”

Southwood Primary School head teacher, Victoria Dolatowska said: “The Halloween disco was organised by the Parent Council who hired a local DJ.

“Although they agreed video content ahead of the event, on the night an inappropriate video was played by mistake for a short period.

“This was a very regrettable incident, but it was a case of human error, and both the DJ and Parent Council have apologised wholeheartedly to the school community.

“Our Parent Council work very hard to organise fun events and support fundraising activities that benefit all pupils at our school.

“I hope this incident won’t put these volunteers off arranging future events as they add lots of enjoyment to the school calendar.”

The Southwood Parent Council has apologised for the mix-up, which they say happened after the wrong video was played.

In a statement released on social media, the group said: “As some of you are aware, an inappropriate video was shown for a short period of time.

“The DJ made a mistake by showing the wrong video.

“We had agreed on singing lanterns for the clip and not what was shown.

“He has wholeheartedly apologised for the error as do the Parent Council.”

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