A police force reportedly paid out a family £20,000 after admitting it unlawfully arrested two parents in front of their nine-year-old daughter over complaints they made on WhatsApp about the girl’s school.
Rosalind Levine and her partner, Maxie Allen, claimed to have been held at a police station for 11 hours regarding the complaints they made about their daughter’s primary school.
The parents claimed to have been arrested and detained by six uniformed officers in January.
They said it was due to suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property.
TRENDING
Stories
Videos
Your Say
Hertfordshire Constabulary initially defended the arrest.
However, the force has admitted it was unlawful and agreed a £20,000 payout, the Times reported.
The force is said to have conceded the legal criteria for the arrests was “not made out” and formally accepted liability for the wrongful detention.
Ms Levine and Mr Allen were previously prohibited from entering Cowley Hill Primary School in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire due to criticising its headteacher and leadership in a parents’ WhatsApp group.
Maxie Allen speaking about the arrest on GB News
|GB NEWS
The school said it had spoken to police after a “high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts”, claiming it upset staff, parents and governors.
Hertfordshire Police said in March the arrests were necessary to investigate the allegations which was “routine in these types of matters”.
The force said “no further action should be taken due to insufficient evidence” following an investigation.
However, the force’s lawyers admitted the criteria for arrest was not met, “therefore rendering the arrest unlawful”, according to the Times.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
The couple had been banned from entering Cowley Hill Primary School in Borehamwood
| GOOGLE MAPSHertfordshire Police agreed to pay £10,000 each to Ms Levine and Mr Allen.
The force considered the payouts “significantly above that required by the case law”.
Times radio producer, Mr Allen, reportedly spoke to the school in May 2024 about the recruitment of a new headteacher, however, his inquiry was rejected.
The school’s governors wrote to the parent body about “inflammatory and defamatory” comments made on social media.
They warned the school would take action against those who caused “disharmony”.
According to the Times, the parents shared disbelief about the warnings on a private WhatsApp group.
The school then banned them from its premises.
Following the ban, the parents said they emailed the school “regularly” about their disabled daughter.
An officer is said to have warned them about the emails in December, saying they should remove their daughter from the school, which the parents did the next month, the Times reported.
Mr Allen claimed he and his partner were not abusive.
Ms Levine told Sky News that the incident was inexplicable to her.
“We cannot fathom what happened,” she added.
“It doesn’t make any sense. We made a few inquiries, we had a bit of banter on a WhatsApp group, and then we were arrested.”
Hertfordshire Police told the Times that there was “no issues of misconduct involving any officer in relation to this matter”.
The force further said: “The legal test around necessity of arrest was not met in this instance”.
More From GB News