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?

What powers do they think they have to stop people have private conversations about them?!

It's insane that they even think they can do this. Not even the government can exert that kind of power. Nor should they, of course.

Any school head or governor who thinks they can do this is worryingly controlling. Or deluded. Or both. And likely unfit for the office they hold.

Definitely agree that the public need to be able to hold public services to account - and that often involves talking to others, whether it’s positive or negative.

and absolutely the police need to consider up front whether an offence is likely to have been committed before turning up. Sometimes the police are a bit too keen to support other public sector organisations (I work with them so I have this from first hand experience) and on occasions need to engage their small p political antanae before rushing to act. As the force has done themselves no favours with this publicity.

disagree.. i don't want to post on that thread, its full of teaching staff ripping two parents apart and blaming them and cheering on a school that seriously overstepped their rights.

parents have EVERY right to hold public services to account, and to talk about them with friends however they like on whatever platform they like. There is nothing that family did that was illegal.

I really think his 'crime' was taking politics about the school onto a WhatsApp group mainly dedicated to packed lunches and non-school uniform days. Some people took umbrage at him being 'no better than he ought to be' (or: full of himself).

He comes across as very focused and involved and due process matters to him. Maybe his soft skills are lacking and some people (certainly whoever dobbed him into the head) felt uncomfortable at being asked to have an opinion.

That said, his partner was also implicated, but it certainly sounds like someone thought they had overstepped what is appropriate for a parent's group. It's the 'what happened next' that is concerning.

The worst that should have happened is that the offended parent(s) should have left the chat.

It would be interesting to hear how he thought the school were 'evasive' in their initial reply to him.

After all, he wasn't a governor anymore and really, some LA jobs don't have to be advertised.

Maybe the school's finances were in trouble and they could no longer afford a deputy, so appointed them as head to save their job. Perhaps they didn't want to share that information.

I mean, he does sound like a dog with a bone and there was probably bad feeling all around.

Maybe the school were going down the route of 'cease and desist'. How it got to this point though seems very odd.

He makes a compelling case though, that's for sure.

I find an eye roll to myself and clicking out of a thread and carrying on with my day without further ado deals appropriately with any messages on group WhatsApp threads I either am not interested in or don't agree with. It's very simple and easy. No need to go running off to tell tales and create drama.

Yes, both now at 6th form, DD about to turn 18.
Shows how long schools have been behaving in a disagree and you're for it way.

This is really good to read. Hopefully more schools will follow their example in reporting abusive parents, and abusive parents will realise their actions have consequences.

We were trying to move schools in the interim but all were over subscribed and I was unable to home educate as both DH and I worked full time and had to continue. There were many times when I did keep DD off.
It was why we desperately tried to work with the school, but we were painted as troublemakers.

What is worse is this school was rated outstanding by Ofsted. Despite multiple parents raising concerns regards bullying and one of the comments made in the report being regarding the lack of lunch time control.

No parent wants to send a child in who is upset, but some of us are unable to just bunk off work for months on end.

But this person was not abusive. They questioned a murky recruitment process and made tame comments on a private WhatsApp group. What part of that deserves the heavy squad?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the police uses millions of taxpayers cash for. They are so useless at solving burglaries, shoplifting and real crime, that they now have to busy themselves with this sort of nonsense.

Public servants and civil servants are now so out of control that they will fleece the taxpayer and then hurt them back. Lets defund this gravy train so that these useless morons don’t have so much spare time to go around terrorising the public.

Genuinely shocked to read about the disgraceful treatment both your children and you experienced! Well done for contacting the police.

Many schools have ‘parent behaviour policies’ or ‘home school policies’ which tell the parents not to be negative about the school on social media. Which would include WhatsApp. Check the ones you know - it is (to me surprisingly) common.

In my experience the SLT hate not being able to be in control of the sort of situations that happen when parents start to talk about elements of the school they don’t like.

Many schools have ‘parent behaviour policies’ or ‘home school policies’ which tell the parents not to be negative about the school on social media. Which would include WhatsApp. Check the ones you know - it is (to me surprisingly) common.

This cannot be lawful or legally enforceable.

The cheek of it.

Yeah, I wouldn't accept being told by a school what I could say to my friends (with exception of anything illegal or public and defamatory). They can't create unreasonable parent behaviour policies and pretend they're legally enforceable.

There is a threshold for arrest and if an arrest has been made when this threshold hasn’t been met then the police can be sued for wrongful arrest. It’s interesting that in none of the news articles anything is mentioned about suing for wrongful arrest. Because if I had been incorrectly arrested and held for eleven hours I’d be suing…unless I’d been told that actually it wasn’t a wrongful arrest and i should just count my lucky stars i wasn’t been prosecuted 🤷‍♀️🤔. Will be interesting to see if the couple do try for a wrongful arrest action.

i genuinely don’t know what the threshold for harassment is.

Honestly, the amount of actual criminal activity going on in Borehamwood and these are the people the police decide to arrest 🙈 We have quite regular stabbings, shootings, drug growing, drug dealing, car jackings...

I don't know this couple personally but I recognise their names from local Facebook groups. Obviously can't speak on what they're like though as I don't know them. However, the fact that the school and police also threatened to arrest Michelle Vince, a genuinely amazing county councillor, for contacting the school on the parents' behalf is absurd. She is always speaking up for people and trying to assist in resolving disputes, it's her job!

Cannot believe you actually wrote this about a parent deeply concerned for the vulnerable child in an opaque school system.

Let me tell you how it comes across to me. (I'm a clerk in a school, governor in another. Parent of children with SEN.)

The guy stops being a Governor (not sure why) but then gets FOMO when the old head leaves. Bombards school wanting to know what's happening with recruitment. School politely refuse to tell a parent the ins and outs.

The guy demands whole group parent meetings. Won't let it go that he has to be involved or kept up to date.
Is so abusive to staff etc they end up banning them from playground. Now schools put up with a lot. More than most people realise. It takes somme pretty abusive and heavy handedness to get to that state

Then he gets bloody awkward. Email after email - probably a parent demanding instant answers from someone teaching his child and you know kinda busy. Then emailing again.
It honestly looks like he kept demanding to come in and talk about medication. Trying to get the round the ban. The school reasonably asks what he wants to talk about and he goes off on one - peeved because he's not getting his own way. So instead of writing it down - putting his kids first - he refuses and keeps demanding to come in.
Seen some of the WhatsApp messages. Described as banter by the couple. Well it's not. It's vile poisonous derogatory and vicious. Slagging off the school on WhatsApp is just not on.
Overall the couple come across as spoilt and too used to getting their own way. They're using their media connections to bully a school and governors who can't talk back.
There was obviously something said that prompted the school to show it to the police
So yeah. Spoilt, vindictive and quite nasty is how the parents come across.

As an ex governor, he'd have probably approved any social media policy you're describing as so offensively illegal?

The point made about your use of 'middle class' is valid, it stuck out in the original post.

I don't know much about the case, but I do think it's interesting that people jump to, 'they've done nothing wrong, look what good citizens they are' rather than imagining there is probably a lot more to this than meets the eye.

If they weren't a 'nayce' middle class professional couple, I wonder how different this thread would be.

Have any of the other parents weighed in?

I can’t form a conclusion either way. This story is reported solely from this couples point of view. The police, school and other parents on the WhatsApp chat haven’t made any comment publicly afaik. I’m inclined to think that other perspectives would cast a wholly different light on events and this couple are on a mission to control a narrative that isn’t entirely supported by others involved but unlikely to be challenged given the fathers status.

Even if it was “Entitled”

It was not illegal

The fact the school went to the police says more about
the school than the parents.