Police arrest parents who slate school on class WhatsApp

[noblegiraffe]

A primary school sought advice from the police after '“a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts” that had become upsetting for staff, parents and governors.' and the police response was to send 6 officers to their house to arrest the couple making the posts and put them in a cell all day.

Although the couple sound like an absolute pain in the arse who should pack it in, 6 police officers seems like a teensy bit of overkill, particularly with the amount of crime currently going uninvestigated. But with schools faced with spiralling numbers of vexatious parental complaints, something needs to happen. I think some unions are starting to offer legal advice and template solicitor letters for this situation.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d8c8566b-99b1-45c6-814b-008042d74a3a?shareToken=6deab807d148cf7695ed4d9d3664c51e

It’s an assumption though.

Deleted as misunderstood.

@StartEngine
You’re typing serious and baseless allegations like this while being sanctimonious about online harassment. Do you have any self-awareness at all?

I think @noblegiraffe was saying if that were the case that's where the story/problem would lie. She's not making any allegations.

From the article
"Cowley Hill primary said it had sought advice from police after a “high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts” that had become upsetting for staff, parents and governors."

So the school has put out a statement but the Times hasn't printed it.

I didn’t say they should provide the emails. I said it’s wrong for them to have claimed they are being harassed simply because there was a high volume of emails without any context on the nature or purpose of those emails, when their own refusal to communicate with the parents in any other way, alongside their breaches of the law and regulations requiring open and regular communication with families, especially a child with SEND. Them refusing to discuss the child’s medical needs during school hours was disgusting and a safeguarding risk. Of course if they behave in such a manner there will be a high volume of emails.

It’s concerning that parents are now being censored and restricted in what they can express complaints about. If people think this is acceptable, that’s even more troubling.

Apologies, I’ve deleted it as misunderstood I believe. Thanks.

There's no evidence the head, class teacher or Governors haven't. Plenty that he hasn't, though.

As for being “upset”, I expect the child and parents were too. The staff have professional responsibilities, legal responsibilities, professional ethics they shouldn’t be following, a duty of care to this vulnerable child with disabilities. Them being “upset” doesn’t override that, or justify what sounds like behaviour to a child that was verging on abusive (refusing to let her parents watch her school play, refusing her medical care while they were in loco parentis, marking her out as a target for bullying by refusing to let her be picked up in the normal way, etc).

Ultimately it seems you have decided based purely on your prejudices and vested interest as a teacher that the teachers must be right, even though the police have concluded there is no evidence to support their false allegations, and are supporting such appalling behaviour to a vulnerable child that she was driven out of her school, with no evidence to support your position and plenty of evidence indicating that the school behaved appallingly and, indeed, broke several different laws and regulations.

And you have no evidence to support your prejudices either.

They weren't asked to make a statement (which they would have been able to do) they were asked (according to that poster) "to put their side of the story..."...which they cannot do.

I imagine most of the parents have got Maxie Allen’s number and steer well clear.

The police (nor school) didn’t tell them which communications were malicious etc. so they’re still not sure what it was they said that caused the problem.

I know how bad this sort of thing can be as we had a group of our parents get a lynchmob together (although they had a FB dedicated to slagging off named people!) but the guy used to be a governor (why did he quit? Who knows. Work commitments, health reasons, million possible reasons) who contacted the board to ask when they would be starting the recruiting process for a new head six months after the previous head had left. Not unreasonable. I read the messages in the article and there is nothing there that would warrant being arrested and is nothing worse than you see on SM every day (and should be the sort of thing we can all post without fear of being arrested). They had to email the school as the school banned them from any form of contact other than email and they had to make sure that their daughter’s new teacher knew what to do if she had an epileptic fit. Don’t think it’s fair to blame someone from always emailing you when you’ve made email the only way you can contact them.

Don’t know how many emails they were sending but I’d expect it to be 100s of pretty abusive ones before the police were called. And then, what about sending a couple of officers round to say “Oi…stop it” as opposed to sending 6 officers to arrest both parents then detain them overnight?

I know some parents are shocking, but I’m slightly surprised at the number of people here who thinks this is fine. How many threads do we see here where schools don’t want to involve the police when kids have been assaulted by fellow pupils? Violent, abusive parents are bang out of order but from what is in that article these two aren’t that.

Seems like another case of low-hanging fruit policing (off to check the drive to see if the Rozzers are on their way…).

And seems to be completely lost on them all

This is what they were in for:

“They were questioned on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property"

Based on emails, SM posts and their physical presence at school all of which are definite things some of which were either witnessed in person by someone at school or are literally in black & white and recorded for eternity!

How could there not be evidence?!

If you’re suspected of sending a malicious communication there has to be a communication that is malicious. They sent emails. The police had the emails. They could read (I hope) the emails to ascertain if they were in fact malicious. The fact they have not be charged with that really does suggest they have not maliciously communicated with the school.

Agree.

They should sue the school for malicious intent.

@saraclara They weren't asked to make a statement (which they would have been able to do) they were asked (according to that poster) "to put their side of the story..."...which they cannot do.

It's called the right to reply and most journalists will provide an opportunity to do this.

Most organisations issue a written statement to avoid saying anything they shouldn't. A statement can give their side of the story by asserting their commitment to transparency, fairness and the interests of the child etc.

That would be 'their side of the story'. It would communicate that they are professional and impartial, not persecuting parents for expressions of criticism in private whatsapp groups.

I strongly suspect the school has used its position to pressure the police to become inappropriately involved. And the police have been very weak and shown poor judgement in a very heavy handed inappropriate arrest in my opinion. Their role is to administer the law not act as a private force in the interest of an angry headteacher.

🙄

Or that they haven't met the level required by the CPS to prosecute.

Even if every word you have written here were true, do you really think it should be a matter for the police?

I find this story absolutely terrifying. And the real story is not the actions of the police, but the fact that we have laws relating to WORDS WRITTEN DOWN that made the police even consider that these actions were justified.

ALL current laws related to saying or writing words need to be scrapped and rewritten.
Inciting or planning violence apart, no words should be criminalised.
If people feel they are being harassed or defamed, they should use the civil law and take out an injunction, or sue for libel.
If people are offended or upset by other people's WORDS they need to get a fucking grip, and stop reading them.

in the article their is a partial statement by the school.
The Times has not published the full statement by the school.

public sector workers are routinely denigrated and abused I’m glad the police acted
Number of officers in attendance will be determined by risk,the tasks they have to undertake, child protection and collateral about the adults in the house
Individual Teachers are unfortunately routinely berated online, and it’s unacceptable. By all means one can have misgivings etc but when it becomes an online campaign to intimidate and undermine,yes the police should intervene

I don’t think there is anything wrong with the communication that were shown and discussed in the article. Writing to ask about a recruitment process, trying to drum up public support for more open communication, emailing about issues regarding your DD who has a serious medical condition, etc. all quite good things. Even texting in a closed group slightly outraged commentary and mocking of staff telling people not to talk about the school isn’t unreasonable. None of that seems out of the ordinary or something people should be expected to refrain from, let alone something that should be criminal.

From the content in the article, their treatment seems outrageous. But the article is clearly written from the parents’ point of view. We don’t know what else went on or if those messages are representative.

However, the most damning bit is that the police supposedly couldn’t tell them which communications amounted to criminal behaviour. That may or may not be true, though it is something that has come up again and again in media articles claiming police overreach re: social media posts, and has been the case in those instances so I’m inclined to believe it. Police really need to establish that the communication could be considered criminal before they arrest people for this sort of crime - especially where a public institution is the “victim”.

No, I've decided that if the school have reported a high volume of emails that are upsetting to various members of staff to the point where the parents were banned from coming into the school and advice was sought from the police, that perhaps there might be more to the story than what the couple involved have decided to publish in the Times.

As it is, the couple also decided to see fit to publish various WhatsApp messages that show them being obnoxious about the school and staff members, so I can also get a measure of them that way too.