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

(For her protection to clarify)

My concern is that your son had to tell you, and the scouts did not. Obviously something happened, how severe is not known, however no children should be unsupervised at any point surely?

If this had happened at home, while he was outside, what would you have done? I’d follow what you would do if this happened at home.

Also, I wouldn’t be sending him to camp again, not unless you are totally satisfied with what happened and the appropriate consequence.

I’d be concentrating on asking the scout leader... what happened? We’re they aware?

I think your letter and op is not very clear. So have you already spoken to the leaders? I don't know about Scout but I am a former Girlguide leader and there is a formal safeguarding process led at County level which the local leaders would refer something like this to. Assuming it's similar with Scout I would expect there will be a proper consideration of what happened.

In terms of your letter it's all muddled and unclear. You start by saying your son can't remember what happened, but then describe the assault. I would use this structure:

1. That your son has disclosed via school an incident from the camp on x date. Enclose copy of the report you refer to if you have it.

2.Set out in factual bullet points the date, time, who was there, an account of what happened during and after the assault.

3.A para on the on the impact it's had on your son, his fear. You could include here why he didn't disclose earlier due to fear of the boy etc

1. what you want Scouts to do - presumably you will ask them to make enquiries, inform you of their safeguarding processes, who will be involved, timescales for their enquiry, keep things confidential

1. Advise you are considering or have contacted the police (personally if you believe your son was throttled by another child I would absolutely make a report). Ask whether/how they will link up with the Police when making their enquiries

1. You can state what you want as an outcome at the end (excluded from future joint camps etc) and ask to be kept informed of any options they consider

The school issue is peripheral and not something Scouts need to concern themselves with so try to keep that separate

Remember it will be likely end up his word against the other boy and that the girl may not want to get involved so you may not get the outcome you want. Sounds an awful situation for your son, bullying is horrible, but you sound very supportive for your son and showing him you take this seriously will help him build resilience and show him you and his friends are behind him

The words need to be included - assaulted, knocked down, strangled.

I agree with this, I've been quite shocked at times with the behaviour of boys at my son's school, and how much they seem to normalise but it was when you said in your update that he was 'strangled' then it seemed much more worrying.
I would want this boy expelled if I was a parent in the other class, if you contact the police then they won't be able to minimise it, but perhaps give them a chance to investigate first.

I think you need to expand the went straight for his throat bit - did the other boy put both hands on your son’s throat, attempt to choke him violently, knocked him to the ground and still tried to choke him?
As horrible as it is you need to be more specific.

On first reading I thought the other boy had tried to grab your son who was then able to run away.
But that’s not what happened.

What's happened here is awful, and I'm not sure why some posters are minimising it. Your son was attacked and that needs to be dealt with. Call the police today, don't wait until after you've contacted anyone else.

I would absolutely send off a letter to the scouts, let them know that the police are involved, and say that you expect that boy to be excluded from the scouts. I would be very firm about that. However just be aware that there isn't anything else that the scouts can do, once they've booted out the trouble maker. It's just a club run by volunteers. Your concerns about secondary school are valid but aren't relevant to the scouts so I wouldn't even mention that to them. Perhaps this is something you can ask the police about when you speak to them, and maybe you can speak to the secondary school when the time comes for him to join.

@Undertheseainabot - you never know anything for certain with 11 year old but my son is under the impression he is. They do tend to talk about these things - especially as placements have only just come out.

The scout leader is meeting with me tonight so I will take some very helpful points raised and use them without being a mumbling and incoherent buffoon.

I will then consider if police are needed to help.

Thank you guys.

the scouts will have a policy in place for this sort of thing that they will have to follow. They are volunteers but they have the back up of district, county, and national scouts councils and staff to help with this. if needs be the incident will be investigated by people further up the chain of command who are more qualified to deal with this. All scout leaders will have had safeguarding training.

I agree that your letter should be very direct regarding the facts. However, I would also make it very clear who the witnesses were.

I say this as a (Beaver) Scout Leader myself. This incident needs to be investigated fully, volunteers or not. We have a code of conduct ourselves, but this incident sounds like it would go right off the scale. I would get written statements where possible and pass these to our GSL. It is likely that this would go to our DC too.

I would be left with no alternative but to immediately suspend the boy while those above me were investigating.

We recently had a situation like this ourselves. Nowhere near as serious though. We take a zero tolerance approach to violence and it went straight to those above with written statements from all adults. We brought it up with the parent of the violent child. Sadly she chose not to believe us (apparently he could do no wrong in her eyes), withdrew him herself but the bad mouthed us to anyone who would listen.

Talk about dammed if you do, dammed if you dont. Sometimes you seriously wonder why you volunteer to do this.

I hope all goes well for you here op. FWIW, I think your letter is too long and you really need to stick to the relevant facts. I am afraid to say my grandson suffered similar at scouts and the leader was absolutely useless. My gs reported it there and then but the scout leader's response was unhelpful to my gs who then expressed his upset at his lack of action which was held against him as being "cheeky".

I did speak to him about it and he said he had two versions of events, one from the boy who assaulted him and my gs's. I said that was okay because three of the other boys had confirmed my gs's version of events and it was apparent he had done this before. He said at scouts they didn't delve too deeply and didn't apportion blame. He hasn't been back.

I did tell him we had not felt very welcome from the get-go. Its a very middle class group and we are not from a "regular" family set up. The other boy's parents also helped out.

He has emailed me since asking if he could "help" in any way and mentioned the word inclusive. Guess he was just covering his back. I wish you better luck here. My gs sounds similar to your ds as well in that he does not "tell" easily. The one time he did so, he was let down by that adult.