The first study on bullying in Rome schools shows that 29 per cent of those interviewed had suffered some form of bulling but that 74 per cent had never spoken about it before. The sample was made up of 12 to 15 year olds in six schools.

The survey, published in the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, was coordinated by an anti-crime division of the questura and devised by an organisation called Pair Education in which groups of teachers, parents, psychologists and police work with students to identify bullying and how to deal with it.

Other results of the questionnaire found that most of those interviewed (60.3 per cent) had been bullied at school but that 20.1 per cent were bullied at home and 19.5 per cent in other places. Most of the bullying (60 per cent) was verbal, 27 per cent physical and 12.3 per cent both. 84 per cent of the victims were bullied by friends and others of the same age while 12 per cent by their siblings.