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.

Report it to the police. The boys need to be permanently excluded.

I'm afraid you are wrong.

If you make a citizen's arrest, you can detain the suspect, but you have no powers to search them, nor do you have any legal authority to confiscate their phone. Your only legal powers are to detain them until the police arrive (Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 section 24A).

Schools, on the other hand, have specific powers to search pupils and their possessions (Education Act 1996 sections 550ZA to 550ZD). They also have specific powers to confiscate a pupil's possessions (Education and Inspections Act 2006 section 94 and Education Act 1996 section 550ZC).

Same thing happened to my daughter. We just went to the police station and filed a report but signed a form to not investigate further at this time. It sure is a bad situation