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?

The school sounds terrible. Hope the staff are reading this. Maybe they'll call the police on all of us. Sometimes you just need to accept you are doing a shit job and move on.

It is sad how they are treating the disabled child. I have one now in a special school who was treated amazingly by his mainstream, despite being severely autistic. There needs to be some official standards to meet for SEND children in schools, it is so variable between schools. The way they treated the parents shows a distinct lack of understanding and unwillingness to collaborate. Poor child at the centre of this. They always forget the kids needs. It's not always the schools fault though and the government need to accept the cost of specialist provision and sort out SEND provision. It is not doing our children any favours at all.

It is highly embarrassing for the school who will probably moan about having stretched resources, actually wasting police resources instead.

We ultimately should all be free to be “busybodies” if that means holding our public bodies to account. It’s horrifying what happened to this couple

I just went on that thread- a lot of the teachers union mn types slagging off the parents basically. One even posted an unflattering picture of the mother to mock her. Really shocking that some adults behave like that. Their behaviour is far worse than the messages in the parents whatsapp group that Maxie and Ros were arrested for. Bet they wouldn’t be too happy if the police turned up at their door (nor should they but it’s not ok for Maxie and Ros either).

Thank you for taking the time to write this reply. That was my impression from Maxie's interview on Heretics. At the heart of it they sound like good people who didn't deserve to be treated in this way.

Are parents not allowed to air their views about a school in a private WhatsApp group? Are we to be censored?

Even if it were a public forum, eg. Facebook, why can't they be honest about their experiences and opinions related to a school? As a public institution, we all have a right to know what goes on in a school. I'm currently looking at secondary options for my year 5, and too right I'm asking for parental opinions of the schools, it's an important part of the info I'm using to decide.

If a school doesn't want certain matters discussed, it needs to have a good look at itself and ask itself why. If its procedures and practices are good and proper, then there can be no harm in people knowing about them. It's only if they have something to hide that they'd be concerned.

As for refusing to communicate verbally about a child with a serious medical condition and SEN and then complaining about receiving emails instead, I do hope they're not offering verbal reasoning lessons, as they don't seem to understand the concept.

Ultimately, this will backfire on the school a la Streisand effect.

…I’m sure that was a completly unbiased interview 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Maybe you should listen to it to get his side of the story?

Gosh, he is a very articulate chap and sounded perfectly reasonable and fair on that 'Heretic' clip.

IMO, his only 'crime' was plopping his 'official' letter into the mum's group. But only in an eye-roll 'man here' kind of way, and not in a' 6 police officers arresting you on your doorstep in handcuffs' kind of way.

I read that they needed several officers to arrest the couple/look after the kids/bag up all the evidence, not because they were expecting resistance. Even so, six seems a lot.

What baffles me is that the police ‘investigated’ for five weeks and then decided there was no case. Surely they would have known that before the arrest, as they already had all the evidence, such as it was!

Whole thing sounds nuts.

There’s already a massive thread on this topic. I think it might be time for MN to have an anti-duplication thread policy.

Kind of makes it clear that there’s not much substance in the idea that standards in state schools will improve when the ‘mouthy middle class’ parents of ex private school kids engage.

If the school management is toxic and governors captured, looks like nothing can be done, especially where supposedly independent organs of the state like the police will do their bidding!

Don’t agree. This thread has a different tone to the other.

I actually tried to search for a thread before posting this, however, the several search criteria I tried didn't turn up anything. Even so, my thread here is posted following a few days of discussion where new details have come to light, and also follows Maxie's Heretics, so a fresh discussion may go a different way.

Needs reviewing but ffs who would be a teacher these days?

Gobby parents disparaging them on social media, this couple clearly so OTT they were not allowed on school premises.

Whether this action was proportionate remains to be seen but I suspect a good part of the review is due to the fact it’s been printed in newspapers.

High time schools had some bite back.

Dad is a very articulate journalist I gather.Handy when you want to cause trouble. Home educate your kids if you have that many issues with the school or move them. Stop being dicks on social media and whipping up a frenzy in WhatsApp. I’m not a teacher and nor would I ever want yo be one if it means dealing with people like this.

His “oh poor us” rhetoric is not fooling me, more fool you if taken in by it.

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. The parents saw apparent impropriety with recruitment and their concerns were dismissed without any proper explanation. They followed proper complaints procedures and made pretty mild comments in a private conversation. The school sounds like its run by corrupt cartel with no accountability. These parents didn't deserve to be barred from the school and certainly didn't deserve to be arrested.

I think everyone needs to accept that schools / teachers are not always the righteous pillars of community we expect them to be. All institutions have the potential for corruption, dishonesty, bad cultures and abuse.

One of my DC's schools sent a letter out trying to ban parents from talking to each other about anything to do with the school at all. It was completely delusional, people will talk about whatever they want unless there's an actual law against it (confidentiality etc).

This happened in this case too. I understand that teaching and running schools are difficult jobs and the abusing parents are a real problem that need dealing with. But that doesn't make arresting a couple asking awkward questions ok.

You keep saying these things, everyone who says anything in favour of people not being arrested for their opinions is biased according to you. what evidence do you have that the couple have done anything wrong at all never mind unlawful?

Eh? Home educate your kids if you want to have opinions about public services?

Also people talking to other and/or the press is literally how lots of important scandals are brought to light! Winterbourne, mental health hospital abuse, maternity scandals, spy families etc etc.

'Put up and shut up' is not always the right thing to do.

I appreciated the link to the Heretic video which I think was first highlighted on this thread.

Also, I don't think he was 'poor us' at all in that interview (it's the only one I've seen). In fact, he was very clear in saying that this wasn't a 'life-changing' moment. The interviewer tried to lead him down the 'how has this affected your 3 year old, sad-face' route and he shut that down pretty quickly, actually.

Obviously I've only heard his side, but if the school is as measured and focused in their response as Mr Allen is, then it would make the whole incident much more nuanced. It would be interesting to hear from them (have we? I don't know!)

That’s nuts and very similar to what’s happened here. It’s incredibly authoritarian that anyone in public services thinks that they can ban people from having a private conversation about them, negative or positive. We need to see major reform here.

They made a statement claiming he had sent them a large number of emails so they reported him to the police. Obviously he sent the emails as he was banned from contacting them on any other platform.

I agree there is a concerning lack of accountability in schools. I found the report about that couple absolutely shocking.