Teachers Union slams violent games

The leader of the National Union of Teachers has hit out at violent video games for encouraging pupils to ‘kill pimps and prostitutes’.

ITN reports that NUT secretary general Steve Sinnott showed concern that parents were ‘over-indulging’ their offspring – allowing them to play on games such as Grand Theft Auto.

Sinnott’s comments came after the publication of a new Cambridge University report in pupils’ behaviour in UK schools.

Case studies in the report included parents of a six-year-old who had mastered Grand Theft Auto and told his teacher how to "kill pimps and prostitutes", and of a seven-year-old who smashed his PlayStation console in a tantrum before pestering his mother to buy a new model.

It found that a "small but significant" group of ‘pushover parents’ are creating major problems for primary school teachers.

"Indulgent parents are struggling in a commercialised world to deal with poor behaviour on the part of their children and that spills over into schools, making it more difficult for teachers to cope with youngsters," said Sinnott.