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?

As far as I know being gobby is not a criminal offence in the UK.

Six police officers were sent to their house FFS in what was a massive overreach by the police who in my experience really drag their heels for proper crime eg if you're burgled, they certainly don't send 6 police officers round!!

Can I point out that the recruitment process for appointing a new Head does not have to be an external one.
If the current Deputy is considered to be completely competent and would make a good Head, then why not appoint them?
It can cost a school £2k+ to recruit someone, takes at least 2 terms and you still don’t know what you’re going to get!

When my dad's car was stolen from outside our house and there was CCTV and ringdoorbell footage of the theft, guess how many officers turned up? ...Errr... exactly ZERO. They told us over the phone (once an officer was actually assigned to the case several days later) that the car is probably already abroad, so unlikely to ever be found.

Yet 6 officers turned up to arrest these parents who criticised the school on a WhatsApp group?! The UK is mad.

They certainly would send round 6 people to arrest a suspected burglar if they had intelligence that there were children at the location.

The fact that the school went to the police says more about there being missing information about the actions of the parents rather than anything else.

For a start "inflammatory and defamatory” comments are not the same thing as " threatening, grossly offensive or obscene"

Deformation is a civil matter, and is dismissed if you prove that the statement is correct or you have grounds to believe it to be correct.

Would or should malicious communication be made legal in UK?

It is a complicated issue, and I support the intentions, but when the act is used to stifle free speech, legitimate discussion and debate, and/or police act in a clearly disproportionate manner, I'd say that changes are needed.

If the police or the school are to come out of this when any credibility, this missing puzzle piece needs producing, as the school's and police statements in their right to reply have been pretty lame,

The problem is there is no common sense anymore, let alone any reading going on
I have spent years fighting companies and local authorities. Just to get a correct bill or a fine for something that wasn’t sign posted removed.

Won each time but honestly wish people would read and check what I am saying is the truth then put themselves in the motorists or the customer’s shoes and make a decision based on that.

I bet they wouldn't - 2 to deal with the suspected burglar, 2 maximum to do 'family stuff'. That is of course assuming the police bothered to investigate the burglary in the first place, which in my experience they wouldn't despite multiple ring doorbell evidence they would rather ignore.

Well if there is a missing bit of information then the school needed to produce it or the police would have found it

Even after going through all the computers and presumably phones from this couple and the school can’t find it or produce it suggests that there isnt some missing piece of evidence

It’s been explained everywhere that six officers were needed. Two suspects to arrest who may or may not have struggled, two children in the house plus a search to do. Two officers might have had their hands full, do you not think? The couple complained to the police and their complaint was not upheld.

They could do both if they felt they had a case. If I had been wrongfully arrested I’d be doing that as I’d feel it would help vindicate me.

Malicious speech has consequences and is not something that has ever been part of free speech or needs to be altered.

The act hasn't been used as although arrested you'd not be charged if a crime hasn't been committed

What were the remarks/speech used? although this is widely reported I haven't seen the remarks/speech

and as they are not malicious could they be shared?

The fact remains that this wasn’t even considered malicious communication

The fact remains is malicious stalking a real crime - not in this case whether it was committed.

Because it’s an open and transparent process. We should not be awarding jobs to pals in the public sector.

that said, it’s not really the point anyway. People shouldn’t be arrested and locked up for expressing opinions about public services.

As opposed to armed gang in a home invasion whilst owner was at home. 999 dialled

Police officers required 2 to deliver a crime number 45 minutes after the event

You're assuming the school is right on its judgement. But that's not necessarily true. It reads to me like the school can't cope with any criticism.

Can’t comment on this part as it’s not in the news report.

That’s completely incorrect. As Maxie explained they had to wait for his 80 year old mother to come and look after the children in the house as they wanted to arrest both parents. Further they hadn’t even analyzed the messages beforehand to determine if any were criminal. Despite that they locked the couple up in different cells for hours.

Personally I thought this type of thing was stamped out in the 80s where you couldn’t get a job working for local government especially as the jobs either weren’t advertised or they went through the process of applications only to award the job to soneone’s son, daughter, aunt etc who usually had to learn the job from scratch

And why on earth did they need to search their home or arrest them anyway? Utter misconduct

It’s a friends experience

Well it’s been found to not be misconduct 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sadly not. There’s still a huge amount of corruption in the public sector. One of my close friends was delighted to be given a six figure managerial job in the NHS by her friend. It was several grades above her current role and it seems they actually created the role for her. It involves attending meetings about meetings largely