News

Report highlights racism in Wales’s secondary schools

Published

2 years ago

November 30, 2023

A REPORT from the Children’s Commissioner for Wales claims that pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds are the target of racist abuse in Welsh secondary schools.

The report, published on Tuesday, November 28, says minority ethnic children and young people from across Wales experience racism in many ways. According to the report’s authors, those ways range from microaggressions to verbal and physical abuse.

The report claims those experiences are almost commonplace in schools.

The report also states that many incidents remain unreported as the youngsters targeted by abuse don’t want to be seen as “grasses”. If labelled “a grass”, victims of racist abuse fear they will be targeted with escalating abuse and retaliation. They also lack confidence in schools’ ability to tackle the issue.

The authors suggest that reported incidents are only “the tip of a very large iceberg”.

Meanwhile, teachers reported feeling underequipped and unconfident in responding to racism.

Mary van den Heuvel, Senior Policy Officer for the National Education Union Cymru, said: “NEU Cymru is deeply concerned by this report, which mirrors the experience of Black staff, who report a rise in racism in our schools and colleges with both Black students and staff facing varying degrees of racist abuse.

“NEU Cymru believes that all forms of racism must be challenged and that more must be done to support all learners and staff to feel safe and supported to understand and address this behaviour, and to feel valued and listened to in schools.”

Those teachers spoken to during the survey work for the report said they needed more practical and clearer guidance and ongoing support on how to respond.

How robust the report’s conclusions are is open to question.

Welsh secondary schools educate over 175,000 students, of whom 12% come from “Any other ethnic background’ other than ‘White British’.”

That’s 21,000 students, most educated in Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport.

However, researchers spoke only to 170 pupils, less than one per cent of the Welsh total.

In addition, the Commissioner drew on ten children who are members of her office’s existing advisory panel and special interest community ambassador groups.

According to the report, those “were children aged between 11 and 16 and with lived experience of racism who volunteered to join the CYP (Children and Young Persons) steering group.”

One of those participants, who appeared on television news to endorse the report’s findings, is the Youth

Officer for Swansea West Labour Party, whose membership includes the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Rocio Cifuentes MBE.

Whatever issues exist about methodology, there is little doubt that racist abuse occurs in schools in every part of Wales. The scale of the issue in individual schools is likely disproportionate to the number of minority ethnic students. That is, where the number of minority ethnic children is fewest, abuse is more likely to occur.

One student in Pembrokeshire told researchers: “I was called a ‘monkey’ by a student.

“Other students reported it and parents were contacted but she [the student who called her the name] started crying so I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

A group of predominantly White Welsh participants shared that they had not directly experienced racism but had witnessed it, the majority daily.

Their experience included racist slurs in the corridor and people laughing it off. It also included people using a racial slur daily whilst talking about Asian-heritage boys.

One child said: “None of these incidents got reported apart from one. It’s all brushed under the carpet.”
Anecdotally, those incidents do not sound unlikely for Pembrokeshire schools, in which the number of minority ethnic students is comparatively small compared to the rest of Wales.

Problems with how schools tackle racism also feature in a comment by a Pembrokeshire student: “In my school, perpetrators must go to ‘rehab’ where they fill out the equality booklet. I don’t know how seriously they take this.”

Children’s Commission for Wales Rocio Cuifentes said: “There is a need for a whole culture change to support schools to respond more effectively and, more importantly, to help young people and children feel safer and feel confident that their schools will take incidents of racism seriously and something will be done about it.

“There is a real need for a comprehensive approach to dealing with this, rather than at the moment where we have pockets of excellent practice but other schools are really struggling.”

A key differential unexplored by the report is the extent to which racist expressions by children reflect their family, economic and neighbourhood backgrounds or how much those expressions arise from peer pressure and their wish to fit in with their friendship groups.

Absent those voices and that information, tackling the root causes of racism relies on the Welsh Government doing much the same as it is now, but harder and more thoroughly. Changing hearts and minds away from reflexive or learned racism will need much more.

Crime

Swansea man dies weeks after release from troubled HMP Parc: Investigation launched

Published

4 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Tom Sinclair

A SWANSEA man has died just weeks after being released from HMP Parc, the Bridgend prison now at the centre of a national crisis over inmate deaths and post-release failures.

Darren Thomas, aged 52, died on 13 November 2025 — less than a month after leaving custody. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has confirmed an independent investigation into his death, which is currently listed as “in progress”.

Born on 9 April 1973, Mr Thomas had been under post-release supervision following a period at HMP/YOI Parc, the G4S-run prison that recorded seventeen deaths in custody in 2024 — the highest in the UK.

His last known legal appearance was at Swansea Crown Court in October 2024, where he stood trial accused of making a threatening phone call and two counts of criminal damage. During the hearing, reported by The Pembrokeshire Herald at the time, the court heard he made threats during a heated call on 5 October 2023.

Mr Thomas denied the allegations but was found guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to a custodial term, which led to his imprisonment at HMP Parc.

Parc: A prison in breakdown

HMP Parc has faced sustained criticism throughout 2024 and 2025. A damning unannounced inspection in January found:

Severe self-harm incidents up 190%
Violence against staff up 109%
Synthetic drugs “easily accessible” across wings
Overcrowding at 108% capacity

In the first three months of 2024 alone, ten men died at Parc — part of a wider cluster of twenty PPO-investigated deaths since 2022. Six occurred within three weeks, all linked to synthetic drug use.

Leaked staff messages in 2025 exposed a culture of indifference, including one officer writing: “Let’s push him to go tomorrow so we can drop him.”

Six G4S employees have been arrested since 2023 in connection with alleged assaults and misconduct.

The danger after release

Deaths shortly after release from custody are a growing national concern. Ministry of Justice data shows 620 people died while under community supervision in 2024–2025, with 62 deaths occurring within 14 days of release.

Short sentences — common at Parc — leave little time for effective rehabilitation or release planning. Homelessness, loss of drug tolerance and untreated mental-health conditions create a high-risk environment for those newly released.

The PPO investigates all such deaths to determine whether prisons or probation failed in their duties. Reports often take 6–12 months and can lead to recommendations.

A system at breaking point

The crisis at Parc reflects wider failures across UK prisons and probation. A July 2025 House of Lords report described the service as “not fit for purpose”. More than 500 people die in custody annually, with campaigners warning that private prisons such as Parc prioritise cost-cutting over care.

The PPO investigation into the death of Darren Thomas continues.

Crime

Woman stabbed partner in Haverfordwest before handing herself in

Published

5 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Court Reporter

A WOMAN who stabbed her partner during a drug-fuelled episode walked straight into Haverfordwest Police Station and told officers what she had done, Swansea Crown Court has heard.

Amy Woolston, 22, of Dartmouth Street in Milford Haven, arrived at the station at around 8:00pm on June 13 and said: “I stabbed my ex-partner earlier… he’s alright and he let me walk off,” prosecutor Tom Scapens told the court.

The pair had taken acid together earlier in the day, and Woolston claimed she believed she could feel “stab marks in her back” before the incident.

Police find victim with four wounds

Officers went to the victim’s home to check on him. He was not there at first, but returned shortly afterwards. He appeared sober and told police: “Just a couple of things,” before pointing to injuries on his back.

He had three stab or puncture wounds to his back and another to his bicep.

The victim said that when he arrived home from the shop, Woolston was acting “a bit shifty”. After asking if she was alright, she grabbed something from the windowsill — described as either a knife or a shard of glass — and stabbed him.

He told officers he had “had worse from her before”, did not support a prosecution, and refused to go to hospital.

Defendant has long history of violence

Woolston pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding. The court heard she had amassed 20 previous convictions from 10 court appearances, including assaults, battery, and offences against emergency workers.

Defending, Dyfed Thomas said Woolston had longstanding mental health problems and had been off medication prescribed for paranoid schizophrenia at the time.
“She’s had a difficult upbringing,” he added, saying she was remorseful and now compliant with treatment.

Woolston was jailed for 12 months, but the court heard she has already served the equivalent time on remand and will be released imminently on a 12-month licence.

News

BBC apologises to Herald’s editor for inaccurate story

Published

6 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Staff Writer

THE BBC has issued a formal apology and amended a six-year-old article written by BBC Wales Business Correspondent Huw Thomas after its Executive Complaints Unit ruled that the original headline and wording gave an “incorrect impression” that Herald editor Tom Sinclair was personally liable for tens of thousands of pounds in debt.

The 2019 report, originally headlined “Herald newspaper editor Tom Sinclair has £70,000 debts”, has now been changed.

The ECU found: “The wording of the article and its headline could have led readers to form the incorrect impression that the debt was Mr Sinclair’s personal responsibility… In that respect the article failed to meet the BBC’s standards of due accuracy.”

Mr Sinclair said: “I’m grateful to the ECU for the apology and for correcting the personal-liability impression that caused real harm for six years. However, the article still links the debts to ‘the group which publishes The Herald’ when in fact they related to printing companies that were dissolved two years before the Herald was founded in 2013. I have asked the BBC to add that final clarification so the record is completely accurate.”

A formal apology and correction of this kind from the BBC is extremely rare, especially for a story more than six years old.