Should I escalate a staff member grabbing my son and calling him a liar?

[RHSDrama]

I was in a RHS garden today, in the restaurant at lunch with DS (7) and DD (3). It was packed. We were by the sandwiches and DS had chosen. I was bending down helping DD when I noticed a bit of a kerfuffle next to me and heard a MOS staff say DS “come with me”. I stood up and he had grabbed my sons arm and was leading him away, DS had gone a bit frozen and looked upset.

I followed obvs and they stopped a few feet away the guy pointed at a piece of Blu Tac and said “what’s that?” DS said “I don’t know, I’m sorry” and the guy said “don’t LIE you LIAR, throw your rubbish in the bin!” At which point I said something like “DO NOT speak to my son like that” and the guy sort of half ran away without meeting my eye.

DS, who is lovely and well behaved little boy was quite upset and a bit tearful, so I reassured him and got in the queue to pay. The MOS passed again and I stopped him and said “grabbing my son is completely unacceptable etc etc” and he said “don’t worry, it’s OK” then hustled off again.

Queuing up I was getting more and more aggy about it, especially the bit where he grabbed my sons arm to take him away from me... this very obviously a small child standing next to his mother??

So I spoke to the manager, she was apologetic and I saw her speaking to him. Five minutes later he was back out by the tables.

ANYWAY so sorry this is so long but I’m now wondering whether to email the garden to follow up? Or accept the that I’ve informed the manager and leave it there?

P.S the blu tac wasn’t my sons, the manager confirmed it was there to hold up a sign which had fallen off.

A relative who works as a criminal law solicitor tells me that what has happed was an assault plain and simple.

The use of any unlawful force on another person is an assault.

The force in this case would not be lawful as the person was not acting in self-defence or defence of another person, and he has no right in law to physically discipline your child by dragging him away. Shouting “liar” at him is also an assault as it puts a person in fear of physical harm.

I would call the police. I know Wisley and there will be CCTV in the cafe that should be recoverable if you act quickly.

Excellent result for you OP.

Well done RHS. Funny how the sane approach works, isn't it OP>

Wow. I'm very impressed with them. They really have taken this seriously. How is your son now, OP ?

@Lulualla actually its not. I used to work in a job similar to one the person who sent the email will be working in. It’s not part of the job description to go emailing forums to contact people, it’s an unusual move.

Actually personally I think @MichaelMumsnet you could have forwarded the message to the OP and let her take it from there. The Garden have responded to the bad publicity hence their request to post on this thread & Mumsnet have facilitated that . Their staff were not very interested when it was just the OP making a complaint - if they were they would have done simple things like take contact details. OP's phone call and email went unanswered. It's true when people say you have to go public in places like Twitter to get anywhere. I think it's a shame they didn't care until there was a thread.

A lovely gesture would be a letter to the little boy to say sorry and that this shouldn’t have happened.

I completely agree @Lulualla - that message was the bare minimum that should be expected.

@RHSDrama hope you get a decent response when you email. The catering mgt need training in customer complaints also (eg take your name, number etc & follow up with the resolution - no need to give you details on how the staff member was disciplined or otherwise, but reassurance on further action taken to ensure it wouldn't happen again). If the catering mgt had done that, then there'd have been no need for this thread or any negative publicity or public response from them.

Anyway, glad they're now taking it seriously.

@RHSDrama I hope that you get a positive resolution from your latest email to Wisley. I’m a RHS member so we visit Wisely gardens regularly- I would have been horrified if any MOS had grabbed my children who are autistic in that manner- this would have absolutely terrified them!

@Alpacathebag
I run a company. If anything negative about is appears online, it is the job of communications staff to respond to it. Handling publicity is a big part of the job.

Of course publicity is part of the job, publicly posting on a forum doesn’t really fall under publicity though does it?

Just to let you all know I have had a chat with Wisley this afternoon and they offered me a £20 voucher and explained the steps taken as above. I also fed back about the initial management of complaints @InvisibleWomenMustBeRead which was an excellent point, thank you.

I have also just had an email kindly offering me a free visit and meal so I have responded to that.

Thanks everyone for your good advice and to Wisley for their robust response.

Wait. So did they contact MNHQ before responding to the OP directly?

Yes but I get the sense two different people were contacting me..... one responding to this thread and one responding to me email. Think they’ve joined up now.

He's assaulted your son by grabbing him. That is not acceptable behaviour, especially for some blu tack on the floor which wasn't even his.

If someone did that to my son, I wouldn't hesitate to report the assault to the Police personally.

I don't care what kind of day someone is having, it doesn't give them a right to do that. What on earth would he have done once he'd lead your son away (if he'd got the chance), who knows? What was even the point of trying to lead him away?
He is unlikely to have spoken to or grabbed an adult, so he should not have done that to your son.

Glad it's been resolved and from the publicity on here, I'm sure it means that the staff member (or any other staff members) won't do anything like that again, which is the main point.

Also, 101 is the non-emergency number and is not wasting police time.
It's reporting an assault on a child. That is an offence. End of. Police deal with crimes, assault is a crime. Just for those saying not to report.
If you don't want to report, that's your choice but don't be made to feel that you can't. Trust me, from experience - an assault on a child regardless of the fact he is not physically injured, is just that and a crime report would be completed for it.