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?

Not fantasised at all. The messages they have released do not follow on nor to they show what comes before. Pretty simple. I've never said the police were wrong.

They didn't say no crime has been committed at all. Nor did they say it was a false allegation. Nor do the police NFA things - the CPS do!

Nope never mentioned whether the police were wrong or not. That is again you falsifying things as you already have done in that last message about what the police said as the police have not said what you have stated. I presume you lack comprehension skills as you have made up things that you think I have said and what you think the police have said.

How is it spiteful to ask why they have withheld information? It is not spiteful to want to see all the information before making a decision! Until then I will assume there is a reason they are hiding it.

To be presented with a negative and come up with the idea there "must be more" with no evidence, you can't seem to see your own bias here. I think you might need to take a step back. If you went into a Jury and were presented with evidence, would you start off thinking they must have done it because you didn't watch them on the toilet on the morning of the crime and something important might have happened, just not "found"? Your logic is bizarre.

Oh dear.

The police reviewed every single communication via email or Whatsapp (and there were no other communications, e.g. in person or by telephone, because the school prohibited it). The police could not produce a single communication that fell within the definition of a crime, such as “harassment” or “malicious communications” (the false allegations that the school had made). Not a single communication that met the definition of the crimes was found, hence there being no charges brought.

If there was evidence of a crime having been committed but the police had been uncertain of whether there was sufficient evidence to proceed to prosecution or whether this would be in the public interest, that would be the role of the CPS to determine. But there wasn’t any evidence at all, as the police have confirmed.

You seem to expect the entirety of all communications between parents and school to be published by the press? That’s completely unrealistic and bizarre and I can’t think of a single case in which that’s ever happened. These parents have already been subjected to huge intrusion into their lives and have now willingly subjected themselves to even more in the public interest by publicising this, knowing it would entail more mud-slinging from people like you. Yet you expect every communication about the details of their child’s medical condition etc to be published in the press?

This simply doesn’t happen, and in no way indicates anything is “being hidden”. If you don’t feel that, without this, you have sufficient evidence to reach a view and comment on the topic then why have you posted hundreds of messages commenting about it?

For the majority of people, who are rational and reasonable, the fact that the police have confirmed publicly that there was no evidence of any crime having taken place is sufficient to conclude that the school’s allegation was false. The police will have been thorough and made sure they have gone through it all with a fine-toothed comb given the publicity, and it’s not plausible the parents would have publicised the case like this if they had in fact committed a crime because this would then, no doubt, come to light and cause them reputational damage.

Your comments seem to be entirely motivated by making up ever-more implausible invented scenarios for which you have presented no evidence at all in a desperate attempt to try to pretend that the school must have been in the right.

The main question is why you are so obsessed with attempting to find a way to justify such a position, despite all available facts pointing to the opposite being the case.

Pleased to see this thread. The previous one I read on MN was like an alternate universe of people - many of them teachers - determined to assume the parents were violent bullies on the basis of no evidence, and no comprehension that their attitudes of assuming any questioning is bullying or aggression towards schools and teachers is part of the problem.

This is why so many in the UK are turning to home-ed these days because schools are so uncooperative and despite wanting to blame parents for every failing don't actually want to work with the parents at all but rather to lay down the law without challenge or discussion, treating the parents as a recalcitrant child in their over-crowded classroom.

That thread, if it is the one I think it is?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/chat/5304206-police-arrest-parents-who-slate-school-on-class-whatsapp?page=33&reply=143351741

started off very much as you describe: a thread for teachers being vindictive to parents and welcoming this false arrest despite the police having confirmed that there was no crime. However, as it progressed this was challenged by more rational posters, including me, with facts, references to education law etc, so the later pages in it are worth reading. There were also some eye-opening comments there from a teacher who left the profession for precisely the reason of this type of toxic behaviour from Heads and SLT which is damaging to both pupils and staff.

Some of the comments on this thread and that one - disturbingly, mostly from people who work in education - show total ignorance of the legal responsibilities of schools and that they are in complete denial about the reality of how children - in particular those with SEND (like the girl in the article) - and their families are treated by schools despite this being a well-documented fact. They also seem to have no comprehension that the school’s own admissions about what they did in this case in fact evidences that the school was in fact in breach of several different laws and regulations whereas there is zero evidence that the parents did anything to break the law at all.

Not liking what somebody does or finding it unpleasant or annoying doesn’t make it a crime. Refusing to communicate with the parents of a disabled child or allow them to communicate with the school in a timely and effective manner about a child’s medical conditions or hold the required termly review meetings of their provision with their teachers (as this school did) is, however, illegal. It’s quite astonishing how many teachers seem to be unaware of this, oblivious about their legal responsibilities, and seem to think that school policies can override the Children and Families Act 2014, the Education Act 1989, the statutory SEND Code of Practice 2015, and even GDPR, simply because they found a parent “annoying”.

As I said on the other thread, repeatedly, the only real solution to this problem given this type of behaviour from schools is now so widespread (although granted, it is not usually as extreme as in the case in the article i.e. going as far as making false allegations to the police) is to put a proper regulator in place in the education sector which comes down like a ton of bricks on all schools and Local Authorities that break the law, stripping professional qualifications from staff involved and implementing significant financial penalties for legal breaches to create sufficient disincentives for behaving like this and hold them to account properly - like in every other sector - rather than leaving it up to individual parents to try to enforce education law through tribunals. When these cases do come before a court, in 98% of cases where the is a dispute between a school and the parents of a child with SEND judges find in favour of the parents. That statistic alone should make it quite clear that to assume the school was in the right in such a case is extremely unwise.

But the letter! But the letter!

With no link to it, let alone excerpts from it, just supposition and fantasy.

When you have half a conversation and they have released part of a convo gloating about what they did but not the bits showing what they did then of course you will ask what is it that they did?

Nope the police said there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution which means the evidence has been presented to the CPS and they have said that the evidence doesn't meet the 50% threshold. Not that it wasn't there or that they couldn't produce it. They said it was insufficient. The police also said my rapist confessing was insufficient. So you saying they had none is not what they said or that none of them met that definition. They said that the evidence is insufficient for the 50% test.

Nope I do not expect all of them to be shared but if they are gloating saying they have done something but do not release the communications that show what they were gloating about doing then crying they didn't do it to the press then it asks questions. Why were they gloating about doing it and wanting to continue?

Why would you think I want access to their child's records? What a reach and what a pathetic deflection when at no point have I mentioned about their child's records. Can I ask why you would even make such a weird and obscure comment? Probably to make me out as something I am not which is what people like you do. Cannot handle that I question evidence when you do not.

The majority of people can read and understand what insufficient evidence means. I've explained it and you seem unable to comprehend what it means. Sadly if you cannot grasp that insufficient relates to the chance of prosecution with the CPS test and not that it wasn't there then there is no helping you.

I've not said the school must be in the right - more fabrication from you. I have said time and time again that I have not given my opinion on that. Again you seem to have ignored those comments and made something up I've not said. Now why are YOU pretending I have said that.

The main question is why am I obseessd with replying to people like you you mean?

Because people like you seem obsessed with lying about me and lack understanding such as what the police said and it seems that you lack reading skills and if you keep asking me then I will keep responding. Don't act dumb as to why does she keep responding when you keep debating! Doh!

You get tetchy and cry when I challenge evidence and when you make things up that the police have not said despite the facts being there yet and you not being able to handle it!

Why are you obsessed with responding to me and then wondering why I am replying? Why are you obsessed with making things up and obsessed with crying over people who disagree with you? If debating is not something you can handle then step away.

You are within your rights to debate and to have your own opinion and so am I. That doesn't make me obsessed nor does it make you obsessed. However, you lying about me and what the police have said is not factual and will be challenged. Also pretending what you said about me is not acceptable. Using that tactic when all else has failed is low and appalling behaviour.

Why did you resort to the 4 humours to pretend anyone who disagrees with you is mental? Are you unable to debate without this?

You seem rather confused. This wasn’t a decision the CPS made after a charge about whether there was a realistic prospect of prosecution. The parents were never charged with any crime at all, because the police could find no evidence of any crime, even having been in the rare situation where all possible evidence about the case was in writing so they had all of it, didn’t have to rely on witnesses or subjective or biased accounts. They reviewed the entire thing, all communication over more than 6 months proceeding the arrests, in writing. And concluded there was not a shred of evidence of any crime ”harassment” or “malicious communications”, per the police’s public statements on the matter.

The police didn’t present a case to the CPS following identification of evidence of a crime and charging people with that crime, and the CPS decide there wasn’t a realistic prospect of prosecution, as you seem to be attempting to imply (although it’s hard to tell due to your flimsy grasp of the law and weird, unsubstantiated and slightly deranged comments). Rather, in this case the police found no evidence of any crime having been committed at all. They have publicly stated that they could not even find one single communication that met the definition of any offence, so brought no charges.

It would therefore never have got as far as anyone in the CPS even looking at it to consider likelihood of successful prosecution because the CPS determine whether to prosecute when the police have determined that there is evidence of a crime and have brought charges. No charges were ever brought by the police to then send to the CPS for them to consider prosecuting. The CPS don’t spend their time looking at false allegations where the police have investigated the matter and found no evidence that a crime has taken place.

Arguably, since the school had made false allegations about a crime that has been proved not to have ever taken place, the school staff should be charged with wasting police time.

What’s most disturbing about these threads is that the people who are apparently teachers have no idea how the legal system functions, no idea about the laws governing their own professionbwhich they seem happy to advocate being broken regarding GDPR and data protection as well as their legal responsibilities to children, and no clue about anything much at all as far as I can tell, aside from a complete lack of any capability for rational thought.

TheCastleDoesNotReply · Today 17:10

Rather, in this case the police found no evidence of any crime having been committed at all. They have publicly stated that they could not even find one single communication that met the definition of any offence, so brought no charges.

I know, right? It's almost as if some posters haven't read the entire story, or else, are following some sort of agenda.

I agree that 6 police officers is excessive but other than that, I can almost categorically say that he deserved to be reported. I don’t think the general public have the slightest idea what abuse school staff are subjected to daily and the school had already banned him from the site long before the WA messages. As for the appointment, as I understand it, they had an interim appointment until the recruitment process could get underway - this is absolutely normal.

According the police, what they did was precisely nothing. Apparently you know better, since you keep asserting this. Care to share your evidence of this to substantiate your assertions?

Great. Do share with us your evidence for your assertion that you can “categorically say that he deserved to be reported”.

It would be very interesting to see the evidence you have to support this very strong (categorical!) assertion, giventhat it directly conflicts with the public statements of the police who have reviewed every single communication not just between the school and parents (all of which were in writing, per the school’s own - illegal - demands) but have also reviewed all of the family’s private communications to their friends and family via Whatsapp or text etc, which were nothing to do with the school in the first place. Yet they found no evidence in any of these communications at all - not one single message evidencing harassment or malicious communications or any other kind of crime - to support what you, apparently, “categorically” can tell us.

Do please tell us what you basis for this categorical assertion is. I’m sure many others would love to know, not just me. Clearly you have some evidence that the police did not have access to. Very interesting! I can’t wait to hear about it. I’m sure it’s not just delusional prejudice which means you believe that schools must always be right and parents always wrong when there’s a dispute, or that you’re so irrational you believe that because some parents are unreasonable and unpleasant to school staff that means that if there is ever a dispute between school staff and parents the parents are automatically wrong, because surely nobody with that level of incapacity for logical reasoning would decide that a career in teaching was a good idea?

I can’t wait to hear your explanation.

Moglet4

....I can almost categorically say that he deserved to be reported.

Oh dear, another poster who hasn't read the thread, never mind the Police statement, which said that not a single WhatsApp post, or email, could be considered to be harassment.

You have the cheek to talk about illogical reasoning whilst blatantly ignoring the qualifier in my sentence? That means half of what you’ve written should automatically be disregarded. Apparently, you are incapable of comprehension when it comes to reporting too. They were reported because staff felt threatened by them, not just because of the WA messages but because of their behaviour on the school grounds too. In every other public facing job, the bar is actually very low to be arrested but when it comes to school staff they’re just expected to put up with anything and not complain. If you think that ‘some’ parents are ‘unpleasant’ then you are utterly clueless. Yes, it is ‘some’ parents - in some schools this is a minority; in others, unfortunately, it is not. In the latter, ‘unpleasant’ doesn’t even remotely cover it. The police clearly acted excessively but the fact they found ‘insufficient’ hard evidence to press charges is frankly irrelevant. Staff should not have to work in an environment where they feel unsafe- considering what staff in many, many schools put up with on a daily basis without involving the police yes, I can ‘almost categorically’ say that they should have been reported. It’s a shame more headteachers don’t take this approach, actually. Maybe then teachers and site staff would feel at least as safe as bus drivers and nurses.

"the fact they found ‘insufficient’ hard evidence to press charges is frankly irrelevant."

Such a worrying statement.

Also feeling unsafe and being unsafe are not the same things, that's why we have laws. The school grounds are private property and so (hopefully within reason - unlike this case), "feeling unsafe" is sufficient to ban from school grounds. It is not sufficient to report to the police!! Can you imagine if every time someone felt uncomfortable or unsafe but no crime had been committed they called the police? I mean, what if I felt like some of the comments on this thread made me feel unsafe? Would everyone be OK with being arrested, their devices seized and then random people on the internet demanding all sorts like full release of WhatsApp conversations and emails discussing the medical needs of their children?

You appear to be projecting massively here. Filling gaps in knowledge with pure conjecture and deciding it’s true. Whippy is too.

Do you work in a school? Have you been abused by parents? If so, I am sorry for you and it shouldn’t have happened. I get that this can be a problem. But the fact that this can be a problem does not constitute evidence that it was in this case. School staff have also been known to abuse their position and we know in this case the HT has indulged themself in a massive overreach in trying to censor the free speech of parents in private conversations with their friends. So anyone with experience of being badly treated by a HT on an ego trip could equally project that they’re entirely in the wrong, in the way that you have re the parents.

The police did not find evidence to prosecute, despite descending mob-handed and completely OTT to this couple’s home, arresting them, searching their tech and despite the testimony of the school staff. That’s what we know. It’s reasonable to conclude the evidence was not there because criminality was not perpetrated.

Moglet4 · Today 19:03

As you must surely know, from having read all of the reporting on this story, there has never been any suggestion that they behaved aggressively on school grounds, or on phone calls.

The only suggestions about that come from the fevered minds of some posters here.

So your evidence for your assertion that the parents in this case were in the wrong and deserved to be banned from school property and accused falsely of crimes which the police have confirmed did not take place is….?

we’re all waiting to hear.

What is your evidence for your statement that you can “almost categorically say” that the police were wrong (there you go, I’ve included your “almost” before the complete unsubstantiated and unexplained “categorically”) in this case?

You mention cases of parents being unreasonable, which do exist. There are also many, many well-documented cases of schools being unreasonable and breaking the law - I will refer again to the fact that in 98% of disputes between schools and parents about children where the child has a disability (like the little girl in question here, who was treated appallingly and forced to change schools as a result of this school’s behaviour, a fact which bizarrely very few teachers on the thread seem to be remotely concerned about or, indeed, have referred to at all, such is their concern for the children in their care) the judge finds in favour of the parents. And these are the ones that schools don’t settle and think they have a higher chance of winning, yet when an objective judge who understands the law looks at these cases that go all the way to tribunal they find in favour of the parents 98% of the time. That statistic has remained relatively static for several years, so it seems quite clear that in the vast, vast majority of cases it is not the parents that are breaking the law.

So, I ask again, how can you “almost categorically say” that the parent here deserved to be reported” even when the police have reviewed every single communication between the parents and school and even between the parents and their friends and family and found not a single communication that constitutes any kind of harassment or malicious communication and have concluded that the school’s allegations against the parents were false?

What is your “almost categorical” belief based on? Presumably you have some evidence to support it?

Do tell us all.

The CPS make the decision to charge or not. If the evidence meets the legal test then they charge. If not they NFA. The police did not say no evidence of a crime. The police very clearly said insufficient evidence. Sadly if you do not understand the difference then you are falsely accusing many people.

The CPS do prosecute false allegations ask yourself why the family are not reporting it as such. Perpetrators of crimes will always cry false allegation and then do nothing about reporting is at such.

You are accusing the school of a crime without evidence which is quite interesting that you believe they are guilty without evidence as the family have withheld that.

What is disturbing is that you lack basic comprehension skills in understanding insufficient to mean zero. Basic reading skills here.

Also calling someone mental isn't ideal it is what people do when they have no other options.

Nope not an angry, ranty biased teacher at all. Nor do I dislike parents. Two false allegations there.

Of course I will call posters liars when they do lie about me. Why would I not? Nope not lived experience at all. Again - more lies.

I do not rub anyone up the wrong way. You again are very much mistaken.
It is alarming that I am not teaching children as nope I am not a teacher. Wrong again!

Who is demanding to see medical evidence?