Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine arrested - The vindictiveness of the school and police overreach

[Everanewbie]

AIBU to worry that this type of incident seems to be happening more and more? To me, there are several concerning aspects to this story. Here is a link if you aren't yet aware.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/29/parents-arrested-by-hertfordshire-police-for-complaining-about-daughters-school

Firstly, the apparent opaqueness of a public organisation and attempts to shut down private conversation and the vindictiveness the school has shown in attempting to silence this couple.

Secondly, the treatment of the pupil whereby she is being dropped off an escorted into school, and inability to discuss he disability and SEN with teachers, leading to multiple emails that were ultimately used against the couple.

And thirdly, WTF are the police doing? 6 Officers to arrest a meek professional couple, in front of their daughter. Holding them in a cell for 11 hours? Why are the police not dismissing this out of hand? I have always tried to be a supporter of the police, but how can reasonable people continue to accept this when they wont attend a burglary or detain shoplifters, but turn up in force for a middle class couple who called a governor a control freak in a private conversation?

That you were corrected in the lie you posted about me?

No, I think I have the measure of you.

Thank you for sharing such a lovely and insightful post. They represent the moral character we hope to see more of in society.

I didn’t post anything about you at all. Please extend the same courtesy.

I understand freedom to criticise schools and teachers - but who creates a libellous WhatsApp group like they did. The messages are super petty and it was only a matter of time before the content was handed over. They should have kept their grievances private, especially as the man is allegedly a councillor and upstanding member of the community.

Yes, you did.

.

Misusing emojis??

Being petty doesn’t equate to libel.

Nor does it meet the standard for malicious communications.

I think that the vast majority of people would agree that if the messages met those standards then of course the school would be in the right. What a lot of people are pointing out is that there has been no evidence that the messages met that standard. A lot of people are also using the fact that they got banned as evidence that they deserved to be banned rather than questioning if the banned was justified.

The messages were posted in a private WhatsApp group of about 12-15 people, one/some of him have clearly forwarded them on to school.

I'm with @noblegiraffe. We know when people are being a bit of a shit. The laughing emoji; really immature and goady when it's actually not laughing at the fantastic and wonderful humour of a post. 😁

SMedia is becoming a cesspit.

I feel many things can be true in this case. I'm really uncomfortable with what the school did. Not ok. Do we have every piece of information? Maybe not.

I stand by the discomfort I have with how people communicate in forums where they have influence. ( Not talking about MN where luckily there's no personal impact!).

What was libellous about what they wrote, in your opinion?

i’m curious, as nothing I’ve seen would amount to libel IMO.

SomethingInnocuousForNow · Today 16:41

Thanks for that, it's interesting that some of the other parents describe the couple as lovely and it being unexpected. Also, the other mother telling how the deputy head shouted at her and threatened to have her arrested.

For all those speculating that the couple were abusive and aggressive, it looks like the complete opposite. It sounds like the acting head has a bad case of DARVO.

It is pretty scary that they couldn't even find what they were looking for with 6 officers. Where are those officers when someone has been burgled? If a bloke is harassing a woman only 1 officer gets sent to see her then pop by and ask him to stop. Far more serious than parents having a moan that the school isn't doing what it is meant to.

First thing I wondered when I saw this was is one of the teachers married to a police head or have a father in the force? It was clearly meant to intimidate all of the parents at the school into keeping quiet.

This

Yes the whatsapp groups are toxic. Thank god you found it and learnt to read and conveniently cut off the words before it which says it is about the groups! Now why would you do something like that? Of course to suggest something that it doesn't say.

It says:
"I have based my opinion on what I see daily from such groups. They are toxic....."

They means groups as I had clearly said in the sentence before which you chose to cut off to pretend I meant parents. Either that or your reading skills are very much lacking.

Private WhatsApp group of 12-15 people. An ex councillor, it's just naive. Be honest, would you have dealt with this this way?

YorkshireLass -

I understand freedom to criticise schools and teachers - but who creates a libellous WhatsApp group like they did.

The acting head forbade them from talking about the school, which she has no right, of authority to do. She threatened another mother with arrest, over another matter discussed by parents.

That's pretty Well textbook control freakery.

Not to mention that there is no lawful way to arrest someone for libel, as its a civil, not a criminal matter. The acting head seems to be a thin skinned egotist.

Ok, point taken but where can I find the messages?

She didn't say that. The letter said nothing of the sort.

So you're all going to ignore that fact this ridiculous temp HT had an officer tell a local MP who tried to resolve it that she'd have the police called on her if she didn't butt out?

Last i checked, local MP are meant to intervene in these situations, and having the school HT get the police to email her to tell her to butt out or be arrested herself is beyond ridiculous.

Sorry, the tHT is a crackpot with a very inflated sense of her importance.

"Ms Vince and MP (and former Deputy Prime Minister) Oliver Dowden found themselves recipients of veiled legal threats from Hertfordshire Police when they took an interest in the long-running affair.
She added: 'I emailed the school to see what steps were being taken to resolve this dispute and I received an email from a PC who was investigating the case telling me (and anyone I'd CC'd into the email, which included Mr Dowden), that we should essentially 'butt out', or face the threat of prosecution ourselves.'
The email, seen by MailOnline, signed by a PC Oliver Limb, says: 'I ask that your communication [with the school] as a third party ceases from this point onwards as you may find yourself being recorded as a suspect in a harassment investigation.
'I also ask that this warning to yourself is forwarded to any party that you have CC'd following your email.'
Mr Dowden told the Times: 'I'm astonished that a situation could have arisen where any police officer could think it would be remotely acceptable to suggest that an MP should be curtailed in carrying out their democratic duties.
'As the chief constable has promised, it's essential we get to the bottom of what happened here.
'And as a society we need to rebalance the culture on this, so that police focus on shoplifting, burglary and other crimes that rightly concern my constituents, and don't get bogged down and interfere in legitimate public debate.'
"

From the DM link above.

So who sent the email saying to butt out??

It really is making me wonder if we need a schools ombudsmen - Ofsted obviously has enough going on but parents do need to have a forum to communicate, perhaps even more so if something isn't working. Isolating parents from discussing "negative" things doesn't sound like a practical or forward thinking approach.

Who said this couldn't happen?

Um, that's why they were arrested, for talking negatively about the school on a group chat and calling one of the teachers a control freak.

It could definitely be dealt with differently, doesn't make it illegal.

We can't have police arresting citizens because some people believe they behaved poorly. Crikey, if that was the threshold everyone in the country would have been arrested at least once!