The parents of a nine-year-old girl were detained after complaining about their child’s primary school over WhatsApp.
Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levin were arrested in front of their daughter and put in a cell for eight hours.
They were reportedly questioned on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property.
After police carried out a five-week investigation, they concluded no further action would be taken.
The couple’s arrest on January 29 reportedly followed a complaint from the school about Allen and his partner sending multiple emails and making “disparaging” remarks in a parents’ WhatsApp group.
Previously, the couple had been banned from entering Cowley Hill Primary School in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, after questioning the head teacher appointment process and “casting aspersions” on the chairman of governors in the WhatsApp group, according to The Times.
Allen, a producer for Times Radio, told the newspaper that he and his partner were prevented from attending the parents’ evening for their nine-year-old daughter Sascha.
He said the school’s approach was intended to “silence awkward parents”, and that their treatment showed a “massive overreach” by the police.
The producer called the ordeal “nightmarish”, adding: “We’d never used abusive or threatening language, even in private, and always followed due process.”
“Yet we have never even been told what these communications were that were supposedly criminal, which is completely Kafkaesque.”
The situation began in May 2024 when the father wrote to the school governors asking why – since the previous head teacher had announced his retirement six months prior – a recruitment process had not begun.
The next month, the chair of the school governors, Jackie Spriggs, allegedly sent parents a message saying that the school would take action against anyone who caused “disharmony”.
Allen and his partner expressed their outrage over a private WhatsApp group, with Levine making a comment about acting head teacher Louise Thomas suggesting the school overreacted to social media posts.
Soon after, the school reportedly banned the couple from visiting the premises, informing them that they could only communicate via email.
Over the following weeks, they claimed to have emailed regularly.
The couple said they repeatedly tried to convince the school to lift the ban, citing their daughter’s struggle with epilepsy, and filed a formal complaint expressing concerns about the head teacher recruitment process.
The school then allegedly sought advice from Hertfordshire police, believing the number of emails had become excessive.
In December, a police officer issued the parents with a warning and apparently told them to take their daughter out of school – which they did the following month.
A week later, officers turned up to arrest the pair.
Levine said when police appeared at the house she thought Sascha was dead, as she “could not think of any other reason why six police officers would be at my door”.
She added: “My heart was thumping, thinking something terrible had happened. So when I was placed under arrest, in a weird way I was briefly relieved. And then I started to think, ‘what on earth? What the hell is going on?”
They reportedly spent the next 11 hours at Stevenage police station where they were interviewed under caution after being released at midnight.
A spokesman for Cowley Hill Primary school said: “We sought advice from the police following a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts from two parents, as this was becoming upsetting for staff, parents and governors.
“We’re always happy for parents to raise concerns, but we do ask that they do this in a suitable way, and in line with the school’s published complaints procedure.”
This incident comes after officers from Essex Police turned up at the home of Telegraph Columnist Allison Pearson on Remembrance Sunday last year to inform her that she was being investigated on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over a social media post.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/parents-arrested-complaining-about-daughter-primary-school