Ds accused of a hate crime

I imagine your son may have done this to distance from his gay brother. If he hangs round with a bunch of regressive bullies then having a gay brother could be enough to get him targeted, so he goes the other way to prove he's like them. You need a conversation about why he did it.
As far as police ate concerned, personally I'd let things play out with no attempt to protect him, as the shock of police involvement now could prevent him from escalating. Wading in to make it go away will have the opposite effect. He will think he's untouchable and can do what he likes, and next time he could hurt someone and really ruin his life.

Would you have thought the same when Henry Nowak was lied about as he lay dying?

I agree with you but for a different reason. I'm horrified that so many people are taking a woman's word who wasn't there and doesn't want her son to be gay so may see herself as protecting him. I'd hoped the Henry Nowak case would have done what his parents wanted and made people think about stereotypes.

A) Not all pregnancies are planned
B) She didn't know her son was gay, which was the root cause of all this when she was pregnant.
C) We're not in the dark ages, so it's not up to anyone else to query why a child has or does not have children.

You've decided all this based on what someone who wasn't there at the time said and sentenced him as well. Using the words juvie centre suggests you're American. In the UK we have this little matter of evidence, and it'll come down to two kids saying stupid things. I'm surprised by your attitude towards body shaming a teenager tbh.

It looks like you have so many children OP that you are unable to control them and look after them properly, children need love and attention

I agree with you btw on the fact that it definitely isn’t ok the way he behaved. I just think there is a big difference between targeting someone because of their ethnicity or sexuality, vs using a slur.

Both are awful, but the first one is a very serious crime, where the second could possibly be just that he is an idiot. Either way, what he has allegedly done is not ok and someone needs to have words with him about it, preferably the police so he realises how close he came to seriously impacting his future.

I suppose he might have been avenging his brother's honour even though OP herself says he doesn't particularly care about him.

And perhaps it was a coincidence that ds has been engaging in antisocial behaviour for no other reason than to be a menace but this time it's for moral and familial honour reasons.

So it was coincidence that the person he decided to allegedly abuse with homophobic and racial slurs just happened to have dumped his brother, and that it is just a coincidence that he heard his brother crying to his mum about it only to then target the ex…come on. He was retaliating for the hurt caused, it isn’t acceptable, not even a little bit, but it definitely was not a hate crime

That’s true, posting online you get criticised no matter what. You’ll be told the right thing to do is to make your son admit what he did to the police by people who hire expensive lawyers when their own sons beat their girlfriends or other kids up.

The police love easy convictions where people just fess up straight away and no investigation has to be done. If he just denied it there’s nothing they can do without proof.

However only you know your son and if this is a regular pattern of behaviour and he could do with the “scare factor” of being spoken to by police. If he’s an otherwise good boy (he won’t be the first 14 year old boy to shout rude things) then make sure he knows not to speak without a solicitor.

Remember it’s best not to have this on his record.

OP you reaction is really bizarre.

I can’t understand why you’re so quick to assume your DS has behaved badly when he has no history of racism or homophobia nor why you can’t fathom why the mother would
lie.

it’s a really odd approach 🤷‍♀️

You don't know this for a fact. You weren't there. You don't know his motivations. And actually, I'd say given that he has engaged in antisocial behaviour before, and doesn't particularly care about his brother, this was an opportunity for he and his gang to be little thugs.

What do you mean he's gone out shouting that nobody can take a joke?

He's been accused of some pretty heinous stuff, he has form for being problematic, and you just let him walk out the door?

Jesus! Take some control here because it sounds like he's going down the path of being a little scrote and you're doing nothing about it.

No he didn’t, he potentially used racial and homophobic slurs (absolutely nothing to condone that because it is completely disgusting that he did) however the event itself wasn’t homophobic or racially motivated, it was motivated by his older brother being dumped and hurt.

That doesn’t change that what he has done is completely disgusting, but the motivation wasn’t what is claimed and it is not a hate crime.

OP, my DS at 14 was part of a group where similar behaviour was going on only it was on Discord so there was evidence. The boys who expressed racist and other forms of discriminatory language were spoken to by the police school liaison officer and were given temporary suspensions The rest of them were given warnings about throwing insults back and forth, and all parents involved were asked to come to school for a meeting with the police where we were advised to monitor what they were writing online.

If you think your DS has done this - and you need to be prepared that he might well have done - then he needs a very big shock. Mine certainly got that and has never done anything unpleasant since. He’s 18 now but it isn’t long since we stopped checking his online activity.

We took his phone off him and only allowed computer use for school work for a week or so if I remember rightly. In your case I’d take his bike off him if the problem is his riding around with mates and behaving badly. He needs to know that he’s in huge trouble. And I’d be telling him he will be in even bigger trouble if he doesn’t get home now.

This is a cry for attention of a middle child of 5. A new baby. No effective male figure in his life. You need to do some tough parenting. Close work with the school on a behaviour plan with actual consequences. Just because you have a new baby and other children does not mean you cannot afford to not take this so seriously. Can you ask anyone for support - is there a wellbeing team at school? Social services? Parenting classes?

I’d say your son has more to gain by lying about this than the other person

This exactly!
Start from this perspective and ensure your son understands no matter how much he wants to protect and stand up for his brother he can’t resort to such unacceptable insults slurs or behavior and it won’t be tolerated by you or society.

Surely the police have more serious things to deal with than awful comments made by a teenage boy. Parents should be dealing with this unacceptable behaviour, not the police.

This thread is a low point of mumsnet. The amount of people diminishing what the 14 year has done because the family are Muslim, or are suggesting that they lie to the police, or are saying the boy defended his gay brother by shouting homophobic insults. It is pure racism and imagine it would be different if it was a sexist assault

I find people who use virtue signalling as an insult are too dull to make a coherent argument

OP - many people have given you lots of advice over many many threads about your 5 children. When people questioned why you had a baby when you already had 4 and were facing ‘anger issues’ with one of your eldest - they were not being unkind. They meant that you clearly don’t have the bandwidth to parent.

I think I’d get DS2 to calm down and talk you through exactly what happened.

If bad things have happened at the other boy’s house and blame laid at DS1 door, he might well be in the mood to lash out, and throw insults about being fat etc. Was he in the company of people who would know his family and expect him to be hostile to your family? Lashing out after getting a hard time at home?

Would your son act like this without provocation? Has he done something like this before? Is there a possibility he was trying to defend his brother, albeit clumsily?

Throwing a drink is wrong. Racism/homophobia very wrong. But let’s not pretend we don’t all know that kids will go for the low hanging fruit in an argument without necessarily believing in what they’re saying.

Whatever your son says I would be texting the other mum to say ‘ds2 has given me a different version of events, but he has admitted to xyz and would like to apologise. Would it be okay to come over with him so he can do so?’ Because at the very least you know he threw the drink so that’s one apology right there.

This is a very sensitive situation and you can’t control what the other family do, say or how they act going forward- but you can clean your own side of the street by making things right as far as you can and not having anything like this happen again.

As crap as this is for your family to be going through in this moment, in the long run it’s the other kid who is going to have the harder time if the family will not accept him for who he is, and if your son is reluctant to apologise, you could remind him of that.