To think innocent until proven guilty even at school?

[PurplePenguins]

There's 2 parts to my post really. Both annoy me but AIBU?

1. My DS3 is 15yo and very quiet and shy. A boy at his school was attacked in the playground (not badly so as to call the police). He accused my DS3 of the assault. I didn't believe him. It's not DS3 nature and the size difference would make it impossible (DS3 being a lot lighter and shorter). Anyway, DS3 was to spend the day in isolation while the school investigated. It took 3 days to watch the CCTV!!!! They discovered that it wasn't DS3 who attacked the boy in fact DS3 was the other side of the school grounds at the time so DS3 has spent 3 days in isolation for no reason. He has not even had an apology from anyone.
2. During his time in isolation, he has missed all breaks including lunch. DS3 wears braces (so no sugary foods or drinks) and is dairy intolerant. He has not been allowed a proper school dinner, but has been offered either a jam or cheese sandwich for which I have been charged £2.60 even though DS3 refused both. The school has a no packed lunch policy, saying they can cater for all dietary requirements. I wasn't told about the lunch arrangements when I was told about isolation. When I complained, the response was, in a nut shell all.students are treated equally and if DS3 doesn't want to eat that is up to him. AIBU to feel annoyed and feel as though they may have been treating him as though he was the one in the wrong?

(Sorry if I'm rambling)

It could be plausible but it is not acceptable. It appears that it was CCTV that exonerated the OP's DS. What I am sugesting is that quicker methods would have been available if the school had taken his protestations seriously. They did not. Nearly every school I worked with did investigations promptly. If there were conflicting views, you presume innocence until you have reasonable evidence to suggest otherwise. That is a basic right I am afraid. The Head has to make a judgement on exclusion. They were not given any evidence to support this action so they just left the child in isolation. That is not acceptable if they do not have reasonable evidence against him. The time taken to investigate is not reasonable.

Sometimes cctv can be clear and useful, sometimes less so - angle, distance, lighting, visible faces etc. Remember CSI is fiction - you can't get facial recognition from space on cctv systems. But lets assume then the perpetrator had a hoodie on - no face visible.

SLT start rounding up those who witnessed the event. And they flag other people in the area. Pupil who's been assaulted has got a couple of his mates to lie and agree with his story. Very quickly SLT have 20-30 students to interview over a couple of days with first wave identifying a second wave. Then stories to corroborate and disregard, follow up questions etc.

A simple investigation can be dealt with in a day. A complex one takes longer. Keeping the student separate - not punished - in this period is perfectly reasonable.

After day 1 I wouldn't have sent my child to school.

What is being done about the victim wrongly accusing your son? I hope they are punished. Obviously I feel for a bullied child and I understand he might have felt he couldn't give the correct child's name but he can't be allowed to do that again.

I would ask for an apology and a look at their policy for isolation. It seems fine as a punishment but your son was being investigated so therefore should not have been punished quite so severely. I get that he could have been the bully hence why he was kept away.

I feel you outrage and I think I would ask for a meeting. Teachers are busy but also human and not perfect.

OP does not say it was CCTV that exonerated.

If OP is insistent on going in to discuss they should indeed know the discipline/behaviour policy and complaints procedure but first and foremost and without emotion/accusation ask why it took 3 days.

If, as I expect, its to carry out a complex investigation then leave it - there's no grounds for complaint.

3 days???

And nobody can take him a hot meal if he can't leave?

And this is all with nothing proven.

Do prisoners get treated like that??

I would expect the child who made the false accusation to be made to apologise to your DS.
I would also expect the school to monitor the relationship between that child and your DS going forward.
This incident has shown that their policy of isolating before investigating is nonsense so I would also request how they are going to address their unworkable policy; and how they are going to amend their isolation policy to accommodate allergies.

This is REALLY bad OP!!
please write a letter of complaint. Won't change anything, but at least your'll have put it in writing.

If the school starts the investigation without delay, neither child has time to round up his mates to lie. If the alleged victim delays in making the allegation to give himself that time, that fact in itself should mean that as a school you start off with the presumption of innocence in relation to the accused child. In any event, you don't start making assumptions about the guilt of one child such that you keep him in isolation with inadequate food for three days - particularly when he is denying it, says he was nowhere near, has no history of similar violence and is smaller and lighter than the alleged victim.

In any event, the OP's first post makes it clear that the school didn't even bother to look at CCTV for three days. There is, quite simply, no excuse for that.

teachers arent investigators you dont need to be Sherlock Holmes to look at cctv to see you have the wrong boy. It doesnt take 3 days to check a couple of minutes of cctv. The head knew the time and place of the attack.
It also wouldn't take 3 days to get ops childs friends to verify they were elsewhere at the time. While all this was goung on the real perpetrator was walkingbaround free to attck someone else.
Have they no common sense? Do they really think a small, slight boy could hold up a larger stockier boy by the throat and pin him against a wall with his feet dangling?

As for offering the type of sandwiches they did..How do they cope with other dairy intolerant kids? Let them starve too? One sandwich for all day at school? And the school are apparently doing him a favour?

Yes but you forget the standard teenage 'Shaggy' defence - 'it wasn't me, i didn't do' irrespective of how many people actually saw them do it.

He had food - he chose not to eat it. Or talk to anyone about it. For 3 days. He's 15, he's not a baby.

The school could only start the investigation when the accuser wanders in to claim the OPs child attacked him - by which time he's had plenty of time to get his story straight and witnesses lined up.

And then think of the time in locating witnesses and follow up witnesses, pulling them out of class, taking statements, reading statements, doing follow up questions etc. Easily 2 days. 3 days isn't a push.

How complex does it need to be?

Ops son was at other end if school with witnesses.
Cctv showed it was a totally different boy.
Its not rocket science. Draghing it out for 3 days is pathetic and bad practice.

Lying boy should be punished.
Ops son should have full apology.
New policy should be made regards investigations of this nature.
Dietary concerns should be addresses by school canteen.

The school sounds a shambles.

Gnother - the OP says it took the school 3 days to look at CCTV. The OP has no idea what was done to investigate so is assuming.

Willow - if cctv was the be all and end all of conviction we'd have no crime on our street. Police are investigators and it takes them weeks to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute assaults. CCTV can be inconclusive for so many reasons and it takes time to interview 10, 15, 20 etc students.

Yes Willow so you have one group of witnesses claiming OP's son did it in location x, and another claiming he didn't in location y. Then you have CCTV which might not show anything.

So you take time to gather all witnesses, take statements, ask questions, follow up and form a view as to what actually happened.

Which takes time!

Op's ds has been isolated for 3 days. That's not pleasant.
He's been accused wrongly.
And the sandwiches.
All of this/the above deserves an apology.

How soon did Op's communicate with her? Did he tell her straight away? That's he's been isolated? Accused?

I wouldn't have let him go to school, once I learned of the isolation on day 1.

It would have taken all of a few minutes to look at cctv. Not 3 days. I reckon, Even I, non Sherlock holmes could have resolved all this within half a day!!

This is all very poor from the school.

Appalling treatment that is completely unacceptable and I would be making it very clear I was not happy and expected a full apology to my son - we are responsible for showing our children what a right and just society looks like and that means calling people out! I realise teachers have it tough but neither a lack of resources or time should constitute a appropriate excuse for this - a letter to the head, copying in governors, OFSTED and the local council would be my next course of action as they obviously aren't willing to voluntarily do the right thing

I would complain about this and report to ofsted for safeguarding concerns about the schools behaviour and incident policy being implemented. That is unacceptable.

"It would have taken all of a few minutes to look at cctv. Not 3 days. I reckon, Even I, non Sherlock holmes could have resolved all this within half a day!!"

No. No you couldn't have.

I'd want an apology from the school and the boy that accused him, a refund for the lunches he didn't eat and 3 complimentary proper lunches for him as well as the boy that made the accusation being put in isolation for saying it was your son when it wasn't. Has he explained why he did that?

OhGoodness?
really?

The boy initially reported the attack. And he would have been asked when it happened. So they would have known it happened at approx. 8am, 1pm, 3.30pm etc. whenever he claimed it happened.
And the cctv should have been quickly viewed. ASAP. For around that time.
Other students may have needed to be asked.
None of this takes THAT long.

Or, it would have become apparent very quickly, that something didn't add up.

And the times that Op's ds claimed to be in a different part of the school, or walking along the maths corridor, or whtever else he claimed, could have also quickly been viewed.

And whilst they might not have been able to categorically say 100% what had happened at this stage.

It would have been clear to anyone that certain bits were questionable.

And you don't think that Me, or most of us, would have been able to manage that?

I expect such from any reasonable school.

It does all seem to have taken far too long.

This is appalling OP. I'll be interested to hear how the HT justifies it.

How are children supposed to grow up respecting authority and believing in fair treatment when schools behave so badly and are manifestly unfair?

You cannot specify, request, or ask for information on, sanctions placed upon another student. That is illegal. well you can ask - but the school cannot respond. All the school can say is that they took appropriate action.

Just because there's a procedure doesn't mean it's good, fair or even legal.

"How are children supposed to grow up respecting authority and believing in fair treatment when schools behave so badly and are manifestly unfair?"

Perhaps they're busy learning to analyse all the information and not leap to rash conclusions based on one side of part of a story.

@ohgoodness - obviously I can't say for sure, but fairly certain that if you were unfairly accused of a crime you didn't commit (and yes, it can happen to any one of us) and as a result, the police locked in isolation for three days and only provided food you were unable to eat, you wouldn't be quite as blasé ....

Agree with Fishface. The whole thing is disgusting.