A SCHOOLGIRL stood up in front of more than 100 delegates to call for a borough-wide policy to deal with bullying.

Among the many aspects of the Community Plan is a commitment to set up a youth parliament for the borough of Blackburn with Darwen.

And two young people have already stepped into the limelight to represent the borough in a national Youth Parliament.

Akil Pathan, 18, and 16-year-old Rahima Patel who is studying for her GCSEs gave a presentation about their new role to the delegates at the launch of the plan. Rahima Patel asked about a borough-wide policy for bullying.

Her question came just a week after 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was found dead in a stairwell near his Peckham home in London after he had been stabbed.

Akil and Rahima were elected to represent the young people of the borough at the national Youth

Parliament and yesterday's event was their first official engagement.

Rahima asked a panel including council leader Malcolm Doherty, Peter Sharman of the Blackburn Partnership and Nizamuddin Makda of Blackburn Council of Mosques: "Is the council willing to implement a standard bullying policy for every school in the borough?"

Council leader Malcolm Doherty said it would be difficult to standardise a policy to deal with bullying across Blackburn with Darwen as the local authority did not directly control schools.

He added: "Having a standard policy will be difficult because the governors themselves would feel they have a role to play in ensuring their school has an adequate anti-bullying policy in place."

The conference was also told there is a national policy on dealing with bullying which the schools use in developing their own approach to dealing with bullying.

Picture: Youth Parliament members Rahima Patel and Akil Pathan with Coun Malcolm Doherty