The mother of the child sent home from school on World Book Day for dressing like Fifty Shades of Grey lead character Christian Grey has spoken out in an interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain.
Credit: Nicola Scholes
Alongside her 11-year-old son Liam, who admitted it was his own idea to dress like the character, Nicola Scholes said to the show: "I don't regret allowing him to go as that character... Every child of the age of 11 knows who he is. He walked into school yesterday and every child knew who he was so I don't think he's gone as something that's not been accessible to children of his age before."
Speaking to Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard on the show, she defended: "This is a very small aspect of Liam's life... he's on the verge of making it as an amateur boxer, he plays football, he's a very well rounded individual, he's academically bright, he thrives in everything that he does... it's one small thing he's done. I don't think it's going to impact on his life because he's got a sense of humour."
Also chatting on the morning show, Liam said he was encouraged to dress as Christian Grey because of the recent media attention the book and character have received.
He said: "Well with the character being so big and popular over the past few years, you see him a lot on telly, on buses and on posters and magazines, he's everywhere basically and it's all the girls talk about and everyone talks about in school."
Responding to questions about Liam taking cable ties into school as part of the costume, his mother continued: "Can I just stress, the cable ties that he were sent in were tiny little cable ties that I use for Christmas decorations, they wouldn't even wrap around his wrist... Is there any difference between that and taking guns to school? There was lots of children than went in yesterday with plastic guns.
On the reaction the costume got from the school, Nicola finished by saying: "They told me they thought it was inappropriate. We've agreed to disagree, it was done tongue in cheek as a laugh, that's how everyone we'd spoken with took it. The school were unhappy with that... There's no bad feelings there between us and the school."
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