Are police able to investigate who made anonymous report to NSPCC

[Twinkletoes18]

hello,

just wondering someone has made a anonymous report to NSPCC about me, physically abusing my child and a lot of despicable things which are completely false. It’s on a third account the past two have been closed and dismissed by both NSPCC and SS.

has anyone been in a situation where police get involved and they have found out who it was, and what’s happened to the person who reported it?

any advice would be greatly appreciated! Ta ☺️

Very unlikely unless you have evidence to suggest it is a specific person and already have a police report/investigation ongoing (would have to be serious so ongoing harrassment with suspected risk to your safety).

Even if either knew who made the allegations, they would not co-operate with a police request for that information. If it became known that identities were disclosed, then people with real concerns would be dissuaded from making reports.

Thanks, I assumed so. It’s very hard, I know who it may be, but it’s hard to pinpoint if there’s no proof. :(

Do you know (or have a pretty good idea) who it is?

If not this won't work, but what I've done with reports to councils is call them about "such and such who reported x to you"
IME they're so indiscreet that, thinking you already know, they'll confirm what you believe, but I'm not aware whether the NSPCC would be more careful

Edited to say sorry I cross posted with you, OP ...

Yes, what neriah said. This would set a bad precedent. Whilst it's annoying, SS and nspcc are dismissing it so I guess you haven't been too harmed.

I wish this was a thing along the lines of wasting SS time. I work as a Social Worker and we waste so much time assessing false allegations. Mainly with parental acrimony and one parent falsely accusing the other of physical or sexual abuse even putting the child through unnecessary medicals. It won't ever happen as we have a duty to assess all allegations but it uses up valuable time we could be using supporting children who are genuinely abused.

Understand, even under the pretext of malicious false allegations as the allegations are very bad as per the report?

Interesting to know. I have asked for a DSAR from the NSPCC but not that they will give me the information anyways. We do have a good clue who it is, as the person gets triggered by something and has been filing a report few days or couple of weeks later after the trigger episode.

how do you report it to council? (Sorry a bit confused on that one.)

I agree on this, it’s strange because the first time the SS dismissed it due to it being false and talking to school and health. The second time false as well and now the third time I haven’t heard back but it’s distressing for parents to receive such calls especially when you love your child alot and genuinely care for them.

They can't but if the person you think is making the allegations is harassing you in any other way maybe you can get something done that way. No chance of cutting the person you suspect out of your live for a while?

how do you report it to council? (Sorry a bit confused on that one.)

My fault for putting it badly, OP - I was referring to reports already made to the council by someone else, which I wished to take action over

As said I don't know if this would work for the NSPCC (or even other councils), but with ours making a confident show of already knowing who reported is usually enough for them to confirm it

BTW I should add that the reports weren't about me directly, but an issue I was dealing with in a community capacity ...

Triggered by something you're doing? Something negative?

Do you know the reports are being made anonymously?

Is there no way police/SS could easily see if all these anonymous reports are coming from the same phone number/IP address?

I meant to say I have not done anything wrong, I barely speak to this person anymore but they have a problem with me and have mentioned it to others that they have a problem with me. But they have the wrong end of the stick and now they keep reporting me. I am minding my own life and going on, and this persons having too much time on their life to be sat reporting me.

Yes the SS have said NSPCC said the reports are anonymous. I wouldn’t know much about the ip address or phone number and they have not mentioned so? Hence I strongly feel like reporting for harassment to the police for this time as this time around there’s much more false allegations and sickly ones than the last two!

I'm confused. Is there something they could potentially see as an issue or not?

I used to be friends with them. They started distancing themselves out from me. I got the hint, and did the same. They went and told other people that she and I don’t speak, I have “issues”. I just walked away from the friendship because she didn’t want to talk anymore, and was giving me a cold shoulder. I’m not sure what I did wrong but since then she has gone around saying a lot of bad things about me.

Then presumably you've given this name/phone number/address etc to SS and NSPCC, so they can forward the next report to the police under suspicion of repeated false allegations, and the police can do a quick check?

I did mention to SS that these are malicious calls and best to speak to school, school have contacted me as they are concerned about my safety now. Anyways hence that leads to my question to contact the police about this. The SS said they had to do checks anyways and I complied with it, but each time this happens it’s becoming hard for me as a mother.

We had something similar happen,with a jealous neighbour. He wasn't reporting us to SS,but to the local council for various baseless reasons.
After the second one,we contacted the dept that was being manipulated by the neighbour,stating that as this was becoming repeated malicious reporting,we'd be taking legal advice as to identifying the complainant as we were considering contacting the police over the harassment.
We never had another complaint/ investigation after that. I suspect that the dept concerned feared being exposed as being a means of bullying us,and told the neighbour to cease.

Then you need to speak to the police.

Tell them you have strong belief that one particular person is raising numerous false allegations of child abuse, to the point your DC school has contacted you, concerned for your safety.

I imagine they would look the source of a fourth report (should it arise) on this basis. They will be able to trace where phonecalls originated, and if it is her, they will most likely pay her a visit.

school have contacted me as they are concerned about my safety now
Sorry, what?

The trouble is i guess nearly all reports are anonymous. They have no way of knowing it was the smae person each time , which would point to malice, or 3 different people which would lead them to think maybe something is going on with your kids.

That makes sense, thank you ☺️

We don’t know, we will have to see what police say