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

Surely if things got to stage of being banned from parents evening ect. you would move schools.

So you should be free to be abusive and threatening in WhatsApp and there should be no repercussions?

And no, everyone's safety is important. How to administer medication can be explained by means other than face to face if staff will be unsafe meeting with this odious pair.

Making people upset does not constitute a crime and the police should not think it does.

FFS does this stuff really need saying? What are we becoming in the UK?

I left a negative review on School Parrot years ago. Is that ok? The school has since improved loads but I can’t delete my original review.

I haven’t ever complained via email. Only face to face. I also don’t use WhatsApp or FB to complain to other parents.

Just feeling a bit worried now

(I do have anxiety and yes it’s quite bad today!) 💐

It's very trumpian!

Why would it be unsafe for staff to meet with them?

How do one or two officer arrest two suspect and search a house?

Oh dear, how sad, what a shame.

If you want to quote that then the teachers and schools should be free to respond on the same platform, clarifying everything these parents have done.

I’ve been on governing bodies, where there have been members who sought to exert influence or promote an agenda. When it becomes apparent that their tactic isn’t getting the desired result, they usually resign.

Well I don't think that was needed either, tbh.

It’s disgusting and utterly terrifying.

If they had made threats against the school or staff then that would definitely demand police intervention, what was said shouldn’t have been responded to like this.

The most ridiculous thing is that I’ve seen worse comments on this very thread from people supporting the arrests.

But being a Lib Dem doesn’t mean he isn’t aggressive.

Over the top, the WhatsApp’s messages weren’t threatening.

A producer at Times Radio. (Not a journalist, I don’t think.)

Don’t be ridiculous. She has no criminal record and six police officers are not required to arrest a woman for complaining about a school.

That’s your opinion. But six is the minimum I would expect for that

My guess is that the police knew beforehand (briefed by the school) that these were an extremely argumentative couple who would refuse to go willingly with police and it would end up in a situation where they needed to be physically put into the car. Two police officers to do that for two people is just dangerous, more officers ensure more safety. There were also children and I'm sure officers would've needed to stay with them as well. Two officers can't deal with the two perpetrators and deal with the kids at the same time.

Apparantly the police could not tell them which messages were abusive or threatening, so presumably there weren't any.
I suspect it was the number of messages.
Parents are allowed to be critical of the school. It is not possible to stop all criticism.
In the past this would have been shared with other parents at the school gate, rather than on whatsapp groups.
Still, the school had their desied outcome; the arrest of the parents and kept in custody for many hours. The parents are unlikely to do that again, and their story serves s a warning to other parents. Though if it were me, I would have moved my child as soon as the trust had broken down.

If you have issues with the school, social media isn't the place to start a slagging off match

Very true, @Pancakeflipper, but in general try telling that to those whose brains seem to fall out once they touch a keyboard

On this specific case I don't think what they actually said has been disclosed (?), but can't imagine this resulted from just a bit of low level grumbling. For the police to act on it I'd expect it's much more than that, but as said details seem to be lacking

Most, if not all schools now have a vexatious complainers policy, sadly. One of the sanctions is for parents to be banned from school site. Another is that communication can only be by e-mail. However, these sanctions are at the very far end of the policy, after all other sanctions have been tried and failed.

In 25 years of teaching in a wide range of schools, I’ve only known one situation where a parent was banned from the school site, and one correspondence was only via e-mail.

According to the policies I’ve seen, parents are considered vexatious when their complaint or issue has been thoroughly investigated, (escalated where necessary), and either resolved or found to be without basis, and the parent continues to complain about the same issue over and over again.

We really need to do something in this country about free speech. There’s no way anyone should be arrested for complaining about a school, never mind this heavy handed approach. It might be uncomfortable for teachers to be criticized but it’s a hugely important part of civic society that we can criticize schools and other public services. This crazy incident should never have happened- police have no interest in turning up for burglaries or even violent crimes.

Exactly. They pose for their photos looking sad and saying whatever they want, in the knowledge that the school can’t or won’t respond in kind, because they have respect for the poor child in the middle of this. If the parents hate the school so much, I don’t understand why they don’t send their child to a different school. The fact that they don’t, would seem to indicate that the child is in fact being well-served by the school, special needs and awful parents notwithstanding.

The police intend to take no further action as no crime has been committed. People should not be arrested and detained in jail for six hours for perfectly lawful things they said on social media.