TV’s Eamonn Holmes in row over claim bullying is ‘just life’

TV’s Eamonn Holmes in row over claim bullying is ‘just life’

His comments came as he dismissed an Ofsted survey which said almost half of all pupils suffered some degree of bullying at school.

Reviewing the day’s national newspapers on the Sky News Sunrise show at 7am, Holmes, 52, said the findings were “unbelievable”.

He then described school bullying as “just life” and “growing up” and mocked it as just “someone sticking their tongue out”.

Co-presenter Charlotte Hawkins, 37, was clearly stunned by his remarks and told him: “If someone feels bullied that means they are being bullied, surely?”

But Holmes hit back at her: “That’s why the world is in the state that it is, people like you just being wimpy about everything.”

Furious anti-bullying campaigners and Twitter users slammed Eamonn as a “bully” himself.

Lauren Seager Smith, of the Anti-Bullying Alliance, based at the National Children’s Bureau, said: “Bullying is a serious issue that can have a devastating effect on the lives of children and young people.

“Children and young people who experience bullying need to know they can speak out, that they will be heard, and that they will be taken seriously.”

On Twitter, Kevin Baxter said: “Did @eamonnholmes just bully his coworker? And now, just says he dispelled the research? Errr that’s YOUR opinion @StopBullying”

Eamonn wrote back: “And your opinion is that every second child is being bullied ? Get a grip man ,u r doing the fight against real bullying no favs”

Eamonn, married to Ruth Langsford, made his on-screen remarks while commenting on the front page of the i newspaper, which reported the shock Ofsted figures.

The Ofsted report, "No Place For Bullying," stated that almost half of pupils surveyed at primary and secondary school felt picked on or bullied at some point.

Eamonn, a dad-of-four, was condemned as “uninformed and crass” by anti-bullying campaigners and victims.

Claude Knight, director of Kidscape, said: “It is so unfortunate that we should still be hearing comments such as, ‘Bullying is part of growing up’.

“To say to children and young people that it is somehow OK for them to be subjected to bullying is totally unacceptable.

“We must remember that there are long-term effects for the targets, and indeed for the bullies.

“If we feed young people the myth overtly, or by messages of acceptance, that bullying is ‘normal behaviour’ then we are failing them.

“It is possible to create environments in which bullying is defined appropriately and not tolerated, and in which aggression and violence are viewed as wholly inappropriate types of behaviour.

“We work with a large number of bullied children and their families each year, and it has to be said that they will feel very distressed that their suffering and despair has been dismissed so glibly.”

Outraged dad Steve Coffey, 38, from Hampshire, was stunned when Eamonn responded to a tweet he sent to the presenter following the comments.

Steve’s daughter was bullied so badly between the ages of nine and 12 that she was forced to move schools twice.

He said: “I am very sad that a well-known personality such as Mr Holmes would say such a thing, his comments were uninformed and crass.

“I asked him to meet with my daughter so she could explain her thoughts on the subject.

“He refused, referred to me as a ‘deep thinker’ and told me I could start a fight in an empty room.”