My son was filmed using the toilet at school

[chrissycn]

My 18 year old son is in 6th Form at our local high school. Today he was in a toilet cubicle when a gang of boys came into the room, they started kicking the toilet door, breaking the lock. My son held the door shut with his feet so they pushed a mobile phone through a gap and filmed him on the toilet. He reported it and an investigation has begun using school CCTV outside the toilet. They have narrowed down all the boys there at the time and will take their statements and check their phones.

I want to report this to the police but my son is very hesitant and he wants to leave school to deal with it. WWYD? AIBU to go against my son's wishes and report to the police? For full disclosure he is autistic and mentally younger than 18.

Goodness!! Yes I'd be reporting to the police - the school can't control this, it needs to be clear to the children that such behaviour is illegal and has severe consequences

No real advice, but schools and the police needs to be throwing the book at these little shits. They also need to be banning any phones with cameras on their premises, frankly. Let the kids have a brick phone with no camera.

My ds was assaulted on a school trip when he was 10 and my biggest regret is not reporting it to the police. The school promised to do all sorts of things and did NOTHING. I'm sure that if I had made a police report, they school would have followed up.

Some of this may sound insensitive, but that's because I don't know any better words to use to get my point across, not because I'm trying to be hurtful or anything like that.
If this happened to a DD rather than a DS, even if she wasn't autistic and had mental capabilities in line with her age (and again I am truly sorry for saying it in that way, I just don't know a better way to put my thoughts across) there wouldn't even be a conversation about what to do - it'd take all of seven femtoseconds before someone decided to (rightly) report the incident to the Police via their emergency number.

I have some thoughts on how the Police, community, charities, tabloid and broadsheet media, the internet at large etc may respond. I'm also aware that my "filter" seems to have developed a fault over the last few months and that I can be a little abrasive at times - something I take great pleasure in when done intentionally, but none at all when the first thing I know about it is getting a message starting with "That's really not ok to say that to people....".

Really though, we don't have anything even close to enough care, safeguarding, and protection for our girls in society, especially in the educational, care, and hospital environments - and while it's much less prevalent (or perhaps just less reported*) there's a few orders of magnitude less support for our sons if they have athe same situations forced on them. All of our kids are precious and need protecting from this kind of abhorrent behaviour, and although society's some a very long way since the 70's/80's, we've still got a lot to do.

OP, I can only echo the vast majority of posts. Do go to the police. Explain to your son that the images might go "viral" and this is the best protection for him. I wouldn't trust the school, I would report at 9am this morning to the police and inform the school I've done so. I know he's 18, but this is a true criminal offences and the perpetrators MUST face the consequences, no ifs no buts

Call the police.
Get a proper investigation and scare the crap out of the evil little monsters.

I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your son, that must have been a traumatic experience for him. As for contacting the police, it’s a tricky decision, especially since your son is hesitant... I think it should be his decision.

I wondered the same. I’d be wary of the school saying they can check their phones as I’m not sure this is true

Oh, you'd think! So many parents are opposed to that and give excuses, just look at the threads on here defending given their children unlimited use of smartphones. Most parents have no idea what goes on.

I reported a safeguarding incident to ofsted once, completely different circumstance to op but child also had Sen. Ofsted just wrote back and said they don’t get involved in individual cases and said to report to safeguarding at la. Maybe they keep on file in case they get lots of similar but it didn’t say that in the letter, it was very much a “don’t write to us about this type of stuff” wording

Ofsted cannot do anything unless a safeguarding fail is found. Police need to be involved if the school is a softly softly approach one.

Report to the police , if he is more vulnerable then it may be a hate crime

I absolutely would report this appalling behaviour to the police. I guess it's difficult because your son doesn't want you to, but I would have a conversation with him stating why you feel that it should be reported to them and hopefully persuade him. If not, I would do it anyway as in my view this is actually very serious and shouldn't just be left to the school to deal with. Your poor son, it's awful.

Yeah police now. They need to be taken to court

She's not saying its the same. She's making the point its not new for boys to abuse more vulnerable boys and girls in school toilets. Which it isn't. The fact that there is now the ability to record images that didn't exist in the 70s is neither here nor there to her point about behaviour across the decades. I'm fairly certain had phones been around then boys wouldn't have thought best not film, its still only the 70s and young people aren't that bad yet.

So so sorry for your son OP. Parent to a DS14 ASD. He would be absolutely terrified.

There's loads of very low level chat that he has heard around him in the changing rooms for years, although he does have a little gang of friends who stick up for him and the older he gets the more people just accept him.

BUT if this happened I would expect (and know) that the teachers would move heaven and earth to root out the culprit and suspend or expel (private school so either are possible).

There was a case of someone being filmed inappropriately several years ago and it was a immediate expulsion.

I hope your son is OK and I'm sending you both positive vibes.

This has happened several times at our local high school. One I heard about was a girl who was being bullied. Another was a friend of my ds who was filmed over the top of the cubicle in y7 and the video was sent around. The school contacted parents but the perps were not even suspended and school refused police. Three years later kids were still mentioning it even ones he didn't know and the video is still out there. He has been afraid to use the toilet in school. It will follow him his whole school life and maybe beyond. His mum regrets not calling the police but luckily no private body parts were actually seen so the school made her feel it wasn't a crime. Said school had to install floor to ceiling cubicles as it was a real problem. It's a reasonable expectation to use the toilet without this crap. The kids responsible need to be punished properly.

How many times does it need repeating, it cant be a police matter if the adult victim doesnt want to report it/wont report it

He might have changed his mind now, but at the time of my post, the son did not want to report the crime.

This has happened on occasion where I teach and we have always involved the police.

Good to hear this response but sadly this is rarely typical in secondary schools. Many of the staff including SLT are infested with woke left wing staff who believe that having any one of the multiple conditions such as ADHD etc is an excuse for this behaviour which means tolerating it.

What kind of school do you work in?

Hi Op,
Separately to the question of reporting to the police - I hope your son is OK as he can be in the circumstances. You mention your son wants to leave school to deal with it. Do you mean, he wants to leave the sixth form? I appreciate that he is a difficult position but if he likes sixth form and is doing well, please reach out to the school saying that they need to do something to reassure your son that he is safe on school premises and his education shouldn’t suffer because the school can’t deal with these issues. It sounds like this group of pupils are doing as they please and are putting other pupils in danger.
Remember, if you do call the police they can visit your home and chat with your son to discuss options - they don’t need to prosecute at that point and maybe the thought of a caution or police record will do enough to stop these pupils or make their family act.

I can understand why your son doesn't want to involve the Police and why he wants to leave it to the school to investigate

I do, however, think that the police should be informed and should investigate

I think the school policy may well be to involve the police. Misuse of smartphones is a massive problem.

It's disgusting, but not about 'today'. The filming is new but humiliation has happened forever.

OP - I agree the police should be involved. The behaviour of these boys is very serious and they are not young, they are old enough to know this is very serious.

I wouldn't trust school to take this seriously enough.