Grangemouth schoolboys charged with racist offences

Two pupils from Grangemouth High School have been charged with racial abuse offences against shopkeepers following an incident last week.

The incident happened at Bowhouse Newsagents in Bowhouse Square, Grangemouth

The teenagers were part of a group of youngsters who were involved in throwing eggs and cans of juice at the Bowhouse Newsagents in Bowhouse Square on the afternoon of Thursday, May 23.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Two boys aged 14 and 15 will be reported to the Children’s Reporter in connection with a report of racist abuse in Bowhouse Square on Thursday, March 23.”

Earlier this week Grangemouth High School head teacher Paul Dunn was forced to apologise for the pupils’ behaviour.

Mr Dunn said: “We apologise to the owners of the Bowhouse Newsagents for this unacceptable behaviour. We have reassured the owners this behaviour does not reflect the conduct of the vast majority of young people in Grangemouth.

“We take any incident of this nature very seriously. We are working with other community partners and our School Based Police Officer to identify and reprimand those involved and ensure this type of incident does not happen again.”

Zain Farid, son of shop owner Ghulam Farid, said his father and mother were both subjected to sickening racial insults from the youths in question.

Zain said: “We spoke to the school’s police officer Lee Strang and were told the boys admitted they had done it. He took a statement from my mum and dad and we were told the school is going to take serious action and the boys’ parents had been told about it.”

Zain said his parents were still shaken by the incident.

“My parents have had the shop here for 19 years and nothing like this has happened before.”