On Sunday 18th October, it was reported that a 15-year-old girl who was Britain's youngest victim of gun crime when she was caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting and that she was forced to return to school, despite her injuries making her more susceptible to Covid-19.
In 2011 Thusha Kamaleswaran was merely five when she was shot in the chest in Stockwell, south London resulting in paralysis from the chest down and more prone to respiratory infections including Covid-19. But according to Daily Mail, her parents were forced to send her to Seven Kings School in Ilford, Essex with threats of a fine. The paper reported that Thusha’s GP, Dr PJ Suresh, had already cautioned the school that her lung function is 'not optimal' and that she is “prone to respiratory infections”.
In a statement to The Sunday Mirror, her brother Thusan said, “Thusha returned to school on Monday but feels unsafe and anxious. It seems really unfair after all she's been through.”
However, Seven Kings' head of pastoral care, Dean Taylor, told the publication the letter to the school from the family's GP “did not provide the necessary information”.
Thusha was shot while she played in her aunt and uncle's shop, Stockwell Food and Wine. The bullet shattered the seventh vertebra of her spine, sending her into cardiac arrest forcing the doctors to perform open heart surgery on her in the street. Her heart stopped twice in the hours after the shooting and she was left relying on a ventilator machine for almost three weeks, with her parents being warned she had only a 50 per cent chance of survival.
She then spent a year in hospital and was confined to a wheelchair.
