To call the police or not over my child being assaulted at scouts?

[Dandygal1976]

Below is what I have written to the scout leader (names removed). This happened at scout camp 3 weeks ago but we only found out yesterday - to my horror he was too scared of the boy to tell us. All the children involved are 11. I am feeling a preemptive strike by calling the police and to start a process in case of problems at secondary school (they do not currently attend the same school. But obviously I am emotive and upset inside.. my youngest is a bit of a delicate flower compared to the rest of us.

Hi xxxxx

Many thanks for your time yesterday… it helped very much. As you know, my son made a disclosure at school yesterday after some sort of welfare class.

I am obviously upset over the alleged incident but I am trying to approach it in a non-emotive way, although I am considering calling the police due to the severity of the attack which I do not deem to be in the realms of children sometimes fighting. I am happy to receive your views on this?

I asked my son when exactly it happened over the two days of camp and he said he does not remember. He stated it was by the Story Tree. He was walking with a girl who he stated was his only friend (I clarified that he does get on with everyone so I think this is just because he is young). He said naughty boy spotted him and that he ran towards him ‘angry and violent’ and ‘went straight for his throat’. my son has said that he got away from the assault and the only reason he was not injured more seriously was because he could run faster. He stated that he thought he was going to die.

He stated that a girl said that naughty boy told her it was because he liked her and didn’t want my son walking with her. my son then cried and said ‘so it happened just because I was walking with someone’.

naughty boy has also stated to the girl that he was expelled from his school previously.

my son stated to primary school that he is frightened to go to secondary school because of this and that he has discussed it with his friends and they are all devising strategies to protect my son (obviously not ideal but shows his level of worry).

What outcome would I like from this… if the allegations are founded (I believe my son but I speak like an investigator due to my job)… Well that is of course your decision but I would like my son to go to next camp at least without him to get his confidence back and let there be some time and distance. I am unsure how you can ensure my son's safety in such an environment and after this complaint.

I was just speaking to mum and my son usually comes back from camp so happy but last time he was very deflated but when I asked him he just said they didn’t do much… my response was, well sometimes that’s a good thing about camp. I did not pick up the situation at all.

I am also going to be putting my son's phone (turned off) in the bottom of his bag in case he needs me at next camp but we also need to figure a way (perhaps you discuss with him) some strategies to involve an adult if he feels scared. The school and myself have made it clear to my son that whatever he is doing, he must always feel safe or speak to someone.

Thanks

me

The scout group must have policies? Everyone has a policy on how to deal with bullying, assaults, complaints - have you looked these up? have you followed the policies? Are they one uniform policy to the scouting movement or are they individual to each troop?

You havent actually said what you want from the scout group

I think one of my concerns would be given that this happened and no adult was aware and apparently none of the children involved felt able to tell the adults present that even if this boy were banned from future camps that I would find it difficult to believe that the volunteers could keep my child safe at future camps.

Must say, I totally agree with the points made by @PlainSpeakingStraightTalking

@PlainSpeakingStraightTalking of course I am not expecting the scouts to have a remit over secondary school. However, it does lend weight to how seriously this has affected my son. Even in a court of law you can submit impact statements to show the seriousness of the issue. We are digressing.

Even in a court of law you can submit impact statements to show the seriousness of the issue. We are digressing.

You are indeed.

Scout leaders are volunteers, but they are mostly trained volunteers and should be able to deal with this to protect your son (my feeling is, this won't be this childs first incident, and they will probably exclude him). If its the same as my children group the county group will take this very seriously. As the children get older with more responsibility, freedom and (age appropriately!) dangerous activities you cannot have children like this within the group. The scout leaders should also do some work with all the kids about disclosing stuff, your son and this girl should have felt they were able to say what happened. Ive been at camps, I cannot imagine this happening without a leader getting wind of it.

The separate issue is the secondary school one, since his primary is already aware they will be able to advise you how to notify the secondary school of this incident, my feeling is they will want to keep an eye on this child as they won't want any incidents like this with any pupils.

If your son had been 'strangled' he would have had visible injuries on his neck. Was there any sign of injury to him? I am not trying to minimise the fright your DS has got but am wondering if it happened exactly as your DS said. If you call the police they will need your DS to be able to give them a lot of detail about what happened and provide some evidence to prove this.

The Scout Leader should have escalated this to the Group Scout Leader. Have they done so? They are who you need to be in contact with, if you are not happy with their response, then you need to contact the District Commissioner. If you're not happy with that response, then Scout HQ which is Gilwell, or Fordell Firs if you're in Scotland.

I had a dreadful incident where my son then aged 11 was assaulted at a “Survival Camp” (I didn’t realise it might be a literal description). It was a district camp and our leaders didn’t attend and the ones who were there went to bed. This left a group of boys running amok and lighting bamboo sticks and throwing them at bivouacs, a boy from my son’s group decided to beat my son with a flaming stick. None of this was disclosed at the camp and my son came home in a distressed state with severe bruising and a superficial burn on his back. He had been too scared to go to sleep.

I contacted the scout leader immediately, with a photo of his injuries it was escalated to district level and the boy who had done it was removed and permanently banned from Scouting with immediate effect.

I didn’t contact the police, but felt their response had been adequate. It was also decided that no further camps would be offered where the boys’ own leaders were unable to attend. I felt this meant that some of the concerns about future safeguarding were addressed.

My son was also vulnerable as his father had died the previous year and he had not settled well at secondary and he later had an ASD diagnosis. Sadly I think these are often the children who violent children pick on to bully.

I think Scouting and Guiding are wonderful for children and my three went right through with them, as PP said people give up their time voluntarily, however it might be that reporting would result in an intervention for the other child. The child who assaulted my son was involved in more incidents and was excluded from school so perhaps it would have benefited him to take it further.

I agree after reading your comments that my statement could have been worded better. The school safeguarding statement is much more robust and they have this. Re the marks on his neck. He comes in with a necker (scout scarf) on, showers without my presence at his age and wears a collar to school. That ship has sailed I am afraid to get any physical evidence.

You don't state that he was pushed to the ground and strangled.

This.

It's too long winded really.

And this.

Stick to the facts; your son was pushed to the ground and strangled by the other boy, without provocation. Leave out all the he said, she said.

Your letter needs to be clearer that this boy pushed him to the ground and strangled him - your OP made it seem the boy rushed at him and he then was able to run away which from the thread is not as accurate.

I think it's too long personally, it needs clarity - this happened, it's had this impact and I want the boy removed from scout camp and to be advised of your safeguarding process and how you'll keep my son safe on future trips.

I would also call the police. Your poor DS, I can imagine it was very frightening for him (and I assume the girl who witnessed it)

As someone who went through a similar situation and successfully came out the other side, this would be my advice

Your letter covers a load of different issues, many of which are not related to Scouts. You have three distinct issues here - dealing with Scouts, talking to the school and talking to DS.

1. The Scouts. Our Scout group has a behaviour policy that each young person has to sign up to. I think you want the Scouts to investigate the incident and decide whether the other person can be allowed to continue. Having had to write similar letters in a similar scenario, I agree that the letter is a bit ‘flowery’ for want of a better word. Change it into bullet points that state the facts only.

DS has made a disclosure at school regarding camp
He was walking with x
Z appeared and pushed him to the ground and attempted to strangle him
How does this relate to the groups behaviour standards
What steps will you take to ensure DS is safe at group?

Any discussion around issues and scenarios at future camps should be discussed after this investigation has completed.

1. The School. Your DS and his friends now sound very worried about going to high school. To be fair, they will meet boys like this anyway (my child is in their first year at Senior School and is flabbergasted by some of the behaviours they see). His current school can do some work around resilience with them all and they might also be able to take steps to keep him out of classes with the aggressor.

3 your son. Having been in a similar situation last year (my child was also attacked by a soon-to-be-fellow-pupil) you need to work on strategies for him to deal with worries about high school/camp. Just around what to do, who to speak to if there’s a problem and - this is the important bit - you need to do it all in a really positive manner and try really hard not to transfer your understandable worries onto him. It’s very hard but so important.

Finally, you need to decide whether or not to go to the police. We didn’t, because the people involved in the setting where it happened dealt with it to our satisfaction. However, we made it very clear that if it happened again, we would be going straight to the police.

Our DC is happily settled at Senior School and is happy and confident. If you’d told me a year ago when we were in almost the same situation as you that this is where we’d be, I wouldn’t have believed you.

You've said they are all volunteers, can't you just go above their heads straight away? If the other boy was banned from attending the next camp based on his behaviour then would your son be ok with that?

youngest is a bit of a delicate flower compared to the rest of us What does this mean? Its pretty deprecating of your own child! I hate it when a child has been hurt, objected to being hurt and been told they are sensitive snowflakes

I absolutely would escalate this.........I find the responses on here interesting. If the op said her son had attacked the girl by pushing her to.the floor, lying on top.of her and strangling her so that she feared for her life and is.now.traumatised and scared for her.future everyone would be.saying he should be prosecuted. Everyone would be saying her parents should take things as far as possible.

It's important this is dealt with properly. Mainly so the ops son feels protected, backed up and safe. It isn't ok to do that to anybody.

We really do need to change our attitude towards male (( or female on male violence )) no wonder incidents of male suicide are so high in this country (( yes I'm rambling, but my small town has.seen 7 male suicides since Christmas. It's an epidemic, probably stemming from the fact men and boys just aren't listened to and encouraged to speak out in the same way ))

@Evanstar
That is fucking disgusting! At my childrens troop, if the leaders can't do it the kids don't go, that seems a completely bizarre thing to think was ok!!! Each child has their own little quirks and it does take someone who knows them to be at the camps, to make sure X is kept away from Y as they are a bad combination together, keep an extra eye on Z because they don't like water, T won't eat cheese and V is asthmatic. That sort of thing you only get to know when you know your kids.

As for letting the kids run riot, what the hell were they thinking?! At ours the children are allowed to talk quietly in their tent, go to the toilet and back and allowed out when the leaders are up.... normally at the first whisper - you don't get any sleep really!

The letter is gobbledegook I can't fathom what happened nor what you want scouts to do. Nor whether your son was injured.

"I absolutely would escalate this.........I find the responses on here interesting. If the op said her son had attacked the girl by pushing her to.the floor, lying on top.of her and strangling her so that she feared for her life and is.now.traumatised and scared for her.future everyone would be.saying he should be prosecuted. Everyone would be saying her parents should take things as far as possible. "

Also agree with this ^^

And cut all the 'I was speaking to my mum' stuff.
State what hap I terms of injury to your son and the action you want scouts to take.

@Macaroonmayhem - thank you for sharing your experience. One of the things playing on my mind is that he gave me the greatest compliment a mum could have the week before. He said that he is really lucky because all of his friends at school have problems and issues but that he has a lovely life (achieved with a divorce as well). You could not ask for a better comment and since this.. I have just been imagining the hell of bullied children like you read in the papers sometimes. This is part of the problem in that I am imagining future worse outcomes that may never even happen. I will chat to the school. I have bought my sons books on mindfulness etc in last few weeks and will work on his confidence to deal with these sorts of issues.

My personally reading is that the police won’t do very much but you could always ring and ask. I very much doubt that they would keep anything on file to make it a pre-emptive strike for High School. You already have your formal complaint as evidence if you need it.

You can check out the scout association policies and procedures at www.scouts.org.uk. Information is on there about the safeguarding unit that you can call.

If it was me I’d be looking for the following:-

• an investigation leading to appropriate sanctions which might include permanent exclusion;
• that the Group have considered why one of their members didn’t report at the time...well actually two didn’t as the witness could have spoken up as well.

I’d expect the Executive and Section leaders to reflect and consider additional training etc. It’s really sad to hear that no one felt able to speak up. Sounds as if something more was going on at camp in term of bullying and / or relationships with leaders. Why did he not run to the nearest adult? I get that he was afraid but hope it makes sense that he should have been able to turn to them or his patrol leader to another friend. It sounds like the camp atmosphere is well wrong that he couldn’t. This boy who attacked him isn’t even in his group. Sounds as if his peers are rallying around but didn’t trust the adults enough;

• that as a minimum the group does a session on the troops code of conduct. Scouts should not be laying hands on each other.

I agree that your letter is a little confusing about what response you want. The Scout leader can surely only really say its up to you if you go to the police. They can choose to too but not make the decision for you.

skint said
“It's important this is dealt with properly. Mainly so the ops son feels protected, backed up and safe. It isn't ok to do that to anybody. “

This is so important. My DC needed to see us stand up for them, feel heard and feel safe. We kept them involved at all stages of speaking to the different parties involved and we asked their opinion each time we had to make a decision.

@DishingOutDone he is just sensitive. I would never make him feel bad for that. He just has a lot of empathy and would cry if he sees someone else cry. I am not disparaging of him, it is who he is.

I would speak to the police.

Attacking someone violently over a girl is not normal behaviour for a child.

There might be child protection issues here. Id certainly be making sure the girl's parents are aware of the altercation as well.