Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine arrested - The vindictiveness of the school and police overreach

In which case it wouldn’t matter if they wanted to remove their child from the assembly because they were Jewish. Muslim, atheist or whatever. The problem was removing the child for any reason, not the Jewish bit.

I think people who aren’t from minority religious groups would be surprised how often asking to exercise basic religious freedoms we are all entitled to in the UK is an issue for people. There is of course a lot of unconscious prejudice and discomfort with people who are different.

Why do you assume that disgust was the school’s word and not the mother’s? I’ve read emails from parents expressing their disgust at various things.

The HMD email was included in a file named “Timeline” that the school sent to the police to evidence the harassment the school was allegedly experiencing.

There was no need to include that email.

Take anti-semitism out of it, why would the school include an entirely reasonable email sent at a reasonable time (I’ve sent things to school at 1am!) regarding an event that went positively in a file to evidence harassment?

If the school’s claims were legitimate and reasonable, how could anyone have read the interaction and been so fearful that it was flagged and used to show unreasonable behaviour?

Ii also thought it interesting the school used the word “disgusted” to describe the mum’s reaction to her daughter taking part in an Easter celebration. That’s a very strong, emotive adjective that, in my opinion, shows a lack of credibility and professionalism in the person making the claims.

That anybody is still supporting the school at this stage is laughable.

I’ve said all along they shouldn’t be arrested.

I don’t know what the line of questioning was exactly, but the reason that the emails were on the document appears to he because they were among other correspondence that was collated to evidence a claim of harassment and unreasonable communication.

My thoughts are with this poor mother. A SEND parent who was hauled to a police station and wrongfully arrested in front of her three year old.

@noblegiraffe if you look at the posts I have posted I have not used that adjective to have described the school.

Also you still don’t know what actually happened here.

Multiple MPs and past office holders have expressed concern. I am genuinely shocked by the line of questioning as I’m sure all right thinking people will be.

It’s what was noted on the document recording problems as the issue with the email. They agreed to the Holocaust survivors event and it seems to have been a success so I’m not sure why you’re imagining other issues unless you want the school to be antisemitic?

It’s permissible for any child to be removed from Christian worship. The school really should have known that, but seeking advice on the legality of removing a child from Christian worship also doesn’t sound antisemitic when the stated problem was that they didn’t want it to open the floodgates to other parents removing their children.

If you want to suggest that I might be overlooking antisemitism, I am generally quite hot on challenging it (you can check my posting history) but I’m not seeing it as an automatic conclusion on the part of the school here based on the evidence given.

Also I’m very confused because is there any rule against a parent sending an email at 7pm given that most parents work and don’t get home until maybe 6 or 7? Obviously if it said you must reply to me immediately that would be different, but why can’t emails be sent when a parent returns home?

Also @noblegiraffe you don’t know that was the only issue they raised.

@noblegiraffe but why did the school not know it is totally permissible for a Jewish child to be removed form Christian worship?

It is worth noting, before labelling the school completely antisemitic, that the issue raised with the Holocaust Memorial email was the time it was sent, and not the content and that the school agreed for the holocaust survivors to come and talk to the pupils.

Some of this is really frightening

“Information released in the last month as part of the request revealed that the exchanges between Levine and the school relating to the Holocaust and Easter prayer had been logged in a document titled “timeline – cease and desist”.
The first entry on the document from Levine was labelled “email about Holocaust Memorial Day – what will it entail”, sent at 7.21pm, with the time highlighted in red to denote that it fell “out of school time”.
More than a month later, on March 31, 2023, the log recorded a “complaint about Easter assembly. Mum stating this is not ‘agreeable to them’.”
A further entry on April 17 noted that Levine was “chasing the email complaint about the Easter assembly”. Several additional entries followed, relating to subsequent correspondence regarding the school’s collective worship policy.
Levine now believes that this log of events was seen by the police. “Why else would they have been questioning me like this?” she said.
When she saw the log, the questions “suddenly made sense to me,” Levine said.”

“The school’s apparent preoccupation with Levine’s Jewish faith also emerged in a separate subject access request, which had nothing to do with the parents’ arrest.
When applying for her daughter’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), Levine sent another SAR to the school. Within the document bundle returned to the family, a single email from the council appeared, revealing that the school had gone to council lawyers for advice about her request to withdraw her child from the Easter assembly.
The email suggests the school resisted letting Levine withdraw Sascha from collective worship. “The school are not sure about withdrawing the child at these times as it will encourage several other parents to do the same,” the council lawyer wrote.
“The pupil is Jewish and the mother has expressed her disgust that the daughter took part in the Easter assembly and prayer.”
The advice ultimately confirmed that parents have the right to withdraw children from prayer and that “the school must comply”.
The JC understands that the council provides regular legal advice to schools and the Cowley Hill collective worship policy means any parent can ask for their child to be removed from prayer.

But Levine said she was “really shocked” that requests about religious observance had been escalated to lawyers and then the police.

“I’ve absolutely no idea why the school had a problem with Holocaust Memorial Day or exempting a Jewish child from Christian worship,” Levine said.”

“Documents seen by the JC now suggest Cowley Hill Primary School cited Levine’s emails relating to her Jewish faith, her Israeli family and her desire to promote Shoah education as part of a harassment report.

Levine said it felt like she had “slipped into an alternative reality” when she was forced to explain her religious rights from inside a police cell. “I felt I was in a weird nightmare,” she told the JC.”

@Lolapusht and @Jerabilis very sad to read that the police asked why she had withdrawn her daughter from Easter and to see that a Holocaust Memorial Day led to dispute

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/revealed-police-quizzed-wrongfully-arrested-jewish-mother-over-her-faith-gvhymd83?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=JC%20Daily%20261125&utm_content=JC%20Daily%20261125+CID_9103fa2b50474a4f3156baefccdf118b&utm_source=Campaign%20monitor%20newsletters&utm_term=Revealed%20Police%20quizzed%20wrongfully%20arrested%20Jewish%20mother%20over%20her%20faith

[Ignore this post - quoted this poster accidentally and now can’t delete it]

Learning that the mother is Jewish has explained a lot of the school and police actions to me. Anti semitism is sadly rife within the police

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/revealed-police-quizzed-wrongfully-arrested-jewish-mother-over-her-faith-gvhymd83 www.thejc.com/news/uk/revealed-police-quizzed-wrongfully-arrested-jewish-mother-over-her-faith-gvhymd83]]]]

Not sure if the screenshots are in order, but thought they might be handy for those disinclined to read an article.

Rubbish

I've said that I don't think the police should have arrested them.

The school said that they phoned the police for advice. I think that phoning the police for advice if people are causing you huge problems is fine.

I have no idea what actually happened between the school and the police but schools can't make the police arrest people. That's on the police to do their jobs. An article said that the police could have just called the couple in for an interview but chose not to and chose to arrest them instead.

So do you think the school were right to call the police noblegiraffe?

The school don't seem to have lied in this case because what they say matches what the couple says. The interpretation of how reasonable the couple's actions were are different, but the facts of what happened appear to be the same.

Proving my point, that people automatically think school staff are trustworthy. So much so that they would call someone unhinged, to even suggest otherwise.
Schools lie because they can, especially if it's to hide their negligence/failings.

You sound slightly unhinged! Why would a school lie if there was no proof? Why would they make safeguarding referrals with no proof of concerns? Have you had a school make referrals about your child?

Primary school WhatsApp groups are for birthday invites, asking each other if it is a non-uniform day the next day and reminders about bake sales. They're not for bitching about the school leadership and moaning about the school.

Feel sorry for the other parents on the group who must have felt very uncomfortable about it all - and clearly at least one felt strongly enough to report it to the school.