Grangemouth head teacher apologises for pupils’ racist attack on shopkeepers

Paul Dunn was responding to reports of a number of youngsters who attacked the Bowhouse Newsagents, in Bowhouse Square, with eggs and levelled racist abuse at shopkeepers on the afternoon of Thursday, May 23.

The attack also involved cans of juice being thrown through the open door of the shop onto the floor.

Zain Farid, son of shop owner Ghulam Farid, said his father and mother were subjected to sickening racial insults from the youths and he had reported the incident to police.

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.”

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.”

Police Scotland had no information at this time if the boys will be charged with any criminal offences, but stated they were liaising with local officers on the issue.

Zain said his parents were still shaken by the incident.

“There had been little things ongoing for about a week now. My parents have had the shop here for 19 years and nothing like this has happened before. We know who these youngsters are – they have been barred from the shop before because of their attitude.”