This brave MP has opened up about the horrific school bullying that put him in hospital

A brave MP has spoken movingly of the school
bullying that left him mentally scarred and needing
facial surgery in hospital.
Chris Elmore, 33, was branded "lard-a**e" and a
"gayer", punched in the face aged 10 and had his
school uniform tied to a urinal and soiled.
By age 14 he was suffering breakdowns and blackouts
which doctors put down to the toll on his mental
health.
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Only after he went to police aged 17, when thugs beat
him so badly his teeth punctured his lip, did the
bullying stop.
But the trauma remained, and just three years ago he
fled shaking and crying to a churchyard after his old
bullies walked into a pub he was in.
Mr Elmore, the Labour MP for Ogmore since 2016,
spoke out to show how bullying is not yet in the past
and schools must work to tackle it.
He first raised the abuse in a House of Commons
debate on Thursday. And speaking to the Mirror today,
he revealed the full devastating extent of it.
"The first time I was punched in the face was when I
was 10," he said.
"In a physics lesson I would be kicked so hard under
the desk my shins would bleed. I've been kicked down
a stairwell."
The former pupil at St Ilan Comprehensive in
Caerphilly, which has since shut down, said the on-
and-off bullying over seven years was mainly by one
group of boys - but some girls were involved too.
"There's one example when I was in a PE class when
I was about 16," he said.
"I was out on the pitch and I came in to the changing
rooms to find my clothes had been wrapped round a
urinal and peed all over.
"And that was actually done by two girls who were
part of a gang of people who were taking an awful lot
of pleasure out of my condition of being bullied."
There were penis size and masturbation jokes,
physical attacks and homophobic humour. Mr Elmore
is not gay but said: "If I was, so what?"
"I would be described as, well, fat, large," he added.
"I would be attacked for being large, 'lard-a**e' and
what have you. I've always been a bigger fella."
Aged 14, he said, "I was having blackouts so I had to
go and have scans to make sure there wasn't
anything physically wrong.
"They put it down to my mental state, I wasn't well
and my body was reacting to stress."
Things came to a head aged 17 during his AS-levels,
when his assailants pounced on him after hiding
behind a door.
"I remember a lot of shoving and pushing, and the
next thing I remember is falling into a glass cabinet
and then landing on the floor," he said.
"I was dazed. I got home, my dad was at home, and
he was quite distressed. What I hadn't realised was
my teeth had gone through a section of my face,
beneath my lip."
Mr Elmore's dad took him to A&E where he had
surgery to glue his lip together - a scar he can still
feel today - and decided enough was enough.
Police were called to the school and one of his
assailants was charged and prosecuted, Mr Elmore
said.
After that the bullying died down - but not before his
bullies tried to blame him for their behaviour.
"They told the school and the police I deserved it, I
was a teachers' pet, I was posh," he said.
He panicked during an exam the following Monday
and had to apply to re-sit it, with the help of his
teachers.
And the trauma remained, bubbling back up three
years ago when six of his old foes walked into a
Cardiff pub.
He said: "To my shame they started verbal abuse, I
went to the toilet, two of them followed me.
"They tried to engage me in conversation, it wasn't
polite conversation so I came back downstairs.
"Then with the three friends I was with, basically I ran
to the church next door where I shook and probably
cried, I can't remember but probably I did cry, while
they fended off these guys."
He added: "I don't think it ever, ever goes away. I
think what you do is you learn to deal with it."
Mr Elmore said part of the problem was because he
was unable to break ties with the group.
"My mum and dad begged me to not carry on in the
friendship group but I always went back," he said.
"Anyone who's been bullied will know that you still
crave friendship."
Mr Elmore was so nervous about opening up in the
House of Commons that he did not tell his fiancee.
Since then MPs have praised Mr Elmore for his
openness in a bid to help children suffering today.
He said he does not blame his teachers - but added
some don't recognise the scale of the problem.
"I think there is more of an acceptance today that
there's a problem in schools," he said.
"I met teachers 16, 17 years ago saying 'this is just
part of growing up, get on with it'."

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