Boy banned from school event for dressing up as Fifty Shades' Christian Grey

Liam excluded from school event for dressing as lead character complete with props, such as cable ties and an eye mask

An 11-year-old boy was excluded from his school’s celebrations of the World Book Day after he showed up dressed as Christian Grey from the novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

Creating a stir among the school staff, Liam Scholes of Sale High School participated in book day dressed as the titular character from the explicit novel and carried with him props, such as cable ties and an eye mask, reported the BBC.

Liam’s mother Nicola Scholes, who is a teacher, stated that the Greater Manchester school deemed her son’s choice of costume as ‘inappropriate’ and excluded him from the group photographs. She held that her son’s costume was actually more appropriate than some of the other costumes that were worn by students at the event.

She expressed her dismay at the bigotry of the teachers, reasoning that it was “appropriate for a teacher to dress up as a serial killer” and “acceptable for kids to dress up as people that kill others,” and “come in with [toy] guns.” Nicola said Liam had been previously advised to dress up as the fiction MI-6 spy James Bond, but she decided against it, as he “was a promiscuous character who kills people.” She argued, “Personally, I’m more offended by a murderer.”

Nicola added that unlike the school administration, which she said had no sense of humour, Liam’s classmates found his costume funny as all of them knew who he was dressed as. “It has been massively blown out of proportion. It was meant as a laugh and tongue-in-cheek.”

Elaborating on her choice of costume for Liam, she stated that had it been her other eight-year-old son, she would not have allowed it since he was still in primary school. But she feels all secondary school children tend to “talk about sex.”

Fifty Shades of Grey has become a major talking point over the past few weeks, with its anticipated film adaptation having been released on Valentine’s Day. EL James, author of the novel, has described the series as a ‘provocative romance’.

The film, which contains ‘strong sex and nudity’, features Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as his lover Anastasia Steele. Fifty Shades has already proven to be a commercial success worldwide, with plans for a sequel already under way.