David Lloyd Safeguarding concerns

[EmmaCra]

I’m extremely disappointed with David Lloyd Gidea Park and how they handle safety—especially when it comes to teenagers.

My son was threatened by an adult man in the pool area. Despite being made aware of this, staff were too afraid or unwilling to approach the adult male or revoke his membership, which ultimately resulted in the police being involved and an ongoing investigation. As a parent, that alone is deeply concerning.

What makes this situation even worse is that my son has now been given a minimum one-year ban for entering the sauna area—while the adult who threatened him appears to have faced little to no consequence. The punishment feels completely excessive and grossly unfair given the circumstances. It comes across as though the club is more concerned with avoiding bad publicity than protecting young members.

You can put a nice, expensive club in Romford, but if standards of behaviour and accountability aren’t enforced equally, the environment doesn’t magically improve. Safety should come before image—especially where children are concerned.

I would strongly caution other parents to think carefully before assuming this club is a safe space for teens. UPDATE 11/03: we still have not been contacted, no letter received or email replied to regardless of the false reply to this review on Google.

How old is your son who’s been BANNED?!

Why was your son threatened in the pool area? What was he doing?

My son was threatened by an adult man in the pool area.

I wonder what your son was doing

What exactly happened?

Let me guess? Your son never does anything wrong and you are both often victims of awful injustice?

What happened?

How old is your son and what did he do
sauna areas have an age restriction - was he somewhere he shouldn’t have been
i think you need to give some more info

Your son is at least 16 to be in the sauna

i would bet a lot that he was acting inappropriately or messing around

and thank goodness he’s been banned for a year

This.

It’s pointless asking for support it bad mouthing a businessman without the actual story. There’s plenty of threads about DL’s poor practices anyway but with details .

The spa areas (sauna etc) are generally adults only (16 or 18 depending on club).

I presume your son was somewhere he should not have been.

my club has a lot of trouble with kids trying to go into the spa areas.

I for one really like the sound of this gym. Your teen likely messing around or behaving inappropriately in the sauna and they acted very assertively in banning him

Why just cut and paste your review?

not very engaging

If they’ve communicated with your son that he has been banned then they have been in touch with him directly and he can contact them to discuss his ban, not you. He will know the age limit in the sauna and know he wasn’t allowed in it, this is what caused an adult to get angry at him for being there? Your son then clearly didn’t leave as he should have done, but stayed and escalated it so police were called. Your son doesn’t sound great, and the adult man doesn’t sound great either but he was at least allowed to be there.

It is interesting that you’ve left a review and the posted the exact same thing here, without giving any details about what happened. Your son didn’t get a ban from that area for nothing, he did something. And they won’t discuss with you the consequences for the other member so you don’t know what action has been taken.

Why don’t you teach your kid to follow rules of the establishments he is using? Or are you one of those parents whose kid can do no wrong when he’s actually a wee gobshite?

Can you tell us what happened OP and do you know the adult involved? are they someone influential ?
Threatening your son is not OK and what reason did DL give for the ban?

Hmm. On the information you’ve given YANBU, but I’d be interested to hear the other side of this.

There's got to be another side to this. Parents should be supervising their children.

He’s too young to be in the sauna but went in anyway so has been banned. It’s also probably the reason an adult at the pool confronted him, coz he was messing about in the sauna.

This OP is giving similar vibes to the post from a mumsnetter complaining that a teacher shoved her son… turned out her son had been bullying a kid, that kid was learning in isolation to keep him safe, her son tracked him down and attacked him with the lone teacher in the room so the teacher shoved him off and out of the room. She wanted that teacher’s head for putting hands on her precious son. This OP seems like that. Too many on mumsnet refuse to see any fault with their kids so when they don’t give full details, that’s now what I assume is going on.

You have left out a crucial part of the story.

So your solution to the problem is to post a negative review on Google? Why would you expect DL to engage with that, especially if there has been police involvement in your complaint?

Safety should come before image. Presumably there is a safety related reason why children can’t go in the sauna.

I agree with you that safeguarding is imperative and the company will need to safeguard its employees and patrons and sitting partially dressed in a dark steamy room with a child does not safeguard the employees and users of the gym.

They are safeguarding the staff and other patrons - the teenager has raised a complaint resulting in a police investigation, which may be genuine or not. The sauna is an enclosed space potentially with no CCTV coverage.

By banning the teenager from the sauna it reduces the risk of the teen making an allegation against someone else that cannot be easily checked by cctv.

OP said her son is a teenager, we don't know how old but presumably as DL said they have been in touch with him directly he must be 16 plus and therefore allowed in the sauna ?

Well, yes. Quite.

Their membership terms and conditions say they reserve the right to talk directly with the child regarding their behaviour. They don’t need to speak to OP.
If she wants to appeal a ban against her child then she needs to write to the regional manger, not the staff at the club.

It’s all in the terms when you sign your kid up. I read them when I did, because it’s my kid so I want to know what I’m signing my kid up for.

If you could rewrite that objectively we’ll be able to answer. Thanks