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

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

Which suggests they were also rocking up to the school and harassing staff in person.

I think sending the police mob handed sends a very clear message to them and other would be people like this. In my previous role I saw clearly unhinged parents and students who even sent death threats to staff. People just wanted to do their jobs but because people didn't agree with them they thought they could harass, stalk and threaten.

I wonder why he was no longer Chair of Governors?

This isn't a bog standard idiot parent situation, it's an incredibly pissed off ex Pillar of the Community carrying on the behaviour that probably led to him having at best to step down and more likely removed for breaches of Nolan Principles and a lack of competence.

Oh yes they would have been on the school's grounds and they would have already had legal letters telling them not to do so.

If they behave so badly they get banned from school then the onus is on them to figure out how to give necessary info tot he school regarding their daughter.
Sounds like they were just using that issue as an excuse to be a pain in the arse

Good, no one should put up with such dreadful behaviour, especially as part of their job. Behaviour is copied from parents, it is important that they learn how to behave in an acceptable manner.

45 email threads containing multiple emails is a lot! How much time must have been spent dealing with and replying to all that?

The responses on this thread are insane. Have any of you actually read the article?

Obviously the parents didn’t do anything wrong because the case was dropped. The “large volume of emails” was because the parents were banned from speaking to the teachers in person despite their daughter having epilepsy.

Bitching about a school or teachers on social media isn’t illegal.

Meanwhile raging antisemite David Miller is on Twitter inciting violence against Jews but despite multiple police complaints they don’t do anything about it.

The two tier policing in this country is terrifying. Forget America, we should all be deeply concerned about the encroaching totalitarianism here.

Also how many threads on here are accusing the U.S. of overreach because of threats to free speech - even warning people not to go - and yet this in our own country is seen as OK? The disconnect is remarkable.

Not true at all. The police regularly turn up mob handed to confront auditors who are filming in public, just because some private company doesn't like.

Surely though, the police could have first requested that they come into the local nick for a chat about the complaint.

Turning up with 6 plod and attempted cuffing etc in front of children is way too heavy handed, even if the school do find them irritating as parents.

This happened to someone I know. Four officers in the middle of the night on a completely made up charge of stalking by an unhinged woman the other end of the country. Thankfully he has taken first class legal advice to take it all the way.

I’m in a couple of minds about this. The article in the Times was fairly damning … but the dad is a producer on Times Radio. I suspect that the school are horrified at the police’s response - it makes them look terrible and, realistically, once they hand this over to the police, it isn’t up to the school any more.

Parents who kick off on WhatsApp groups are not a lot of fun. There’s a good chance that the other parents have just about had enough of them.

It sounds like it was a campaign of relentless harassment rather than a bit of moaning on WhatsApp. Every school has a moany parent or two but for the police to have taken this seriously, and to have obtained a warrant for their electronic devices, there must be convincing evidence of more than just moaning.

Child with epilepsy means the school will have had mandatory epilepsy training from the local hospital usually a whole morning with explicit sign off on how to safely administer the medication. There will then be a written care plan for the child again directly from the hospital. The parents do not need to be involved as intermediaries. School would actually be in trouble if they followed advice from the parents that was not in the hospital care plan or against the training they received.

Obviously the parents didn’t do anything wrong because the case was dropped

No, they definitely did something wrong. Bombarding a school with vexatious and upsetting emails and bitching about school staff on WhatsApp and public social media is definitely wrong.

Threshold for illegality regarding malicious communications and harassment might not have been met, but that doesn't make what they did fine.

There seems to be more drama with the parents than the kids nowdays.
School gate mum drama my little angles cant do wrong drama.
Teacher's getting blamed for abuse because a child got told off child has never heard a raised voice.
Always some parent wants to say something.
Teacher are ther to teach not to be used as day care.
Some even have to change nappies because kids aren't potty trained.
And the abuse they take from children is disgusting all because parents cant parent there child.
My childs feeling got hurt well welcome to the world not everything is going to revolve around your child.
Every day i read something on MN that starts with shall i have a word with the teacher im livid im brocken in shock upset because my child teacher said or did something my child dont like.
My child has sen they cant help it.
Sen is not a green card for you or your child to treat teachers like crap or you or your child to act like a twat.
There ive said it.
Teachers are human.

This. I bet if they felt any shame or remorse it was because all the neighbours saw the police at their door, not because they regretted the abuse they had spewed out.

Sorry, this was meant to be tagged on to another post but I bungled the tagging.

Exactly - not enough evidence to charge doesn't mean they didn't do anything wrong.

Good. Some parents are toxic
I'm a lovely teacher (I really am)
I had a parent last year spread awful lies about me on Facebook. When the school was informed (by another parent, I'm not on FB) I was called in for a meeting to discuss. School's answer was that I wasn't to have any contact with the family going forwards, they were not going to write it up as a safeguarding concern, and the parent was never spoken to. Some schools are terrified of some parents and what they might do to tarnish their reputations.

Parents can be absolutely unhinged. One father marched onto the school field to lay the head of department teacher out while he was coaching the football team. The teacher defended himself successfully. The school went into lockdown the teacher was arrested. It was madness. The father had threatened a number of staff members before was banned from the school.

Do you live there? Go to that school? Know the parents or work in the police?

if not how can you be absolutely sure of the validity of your comment.

I didn't see much profanity in the extracts printed in the Times piece. It's almost like we're talking about two different things. Sure, some parents behave disgracefully. But in this case, so you really think that's what's going on?

It's interesting that the what's app messages published in the article don't paint them in a particularly good light, although they obviously think the messages illustrate how harmless they are. Probably points to the crux of the problem, their own entitlement. I would be wondering why they don't have anything better to do than gossip and cast aspirations about their child's school.

https://www.hertsmerelibdems.org.uk/our-team/bushey-park

Google is your friend.

Blimey