Parents held for 11 hours over complaints about daughter’s school

Another story apparently involving overzealous policing, this time from the Guardian:

The parents of a nine-year-old girl have said they were held at a police station for 11 hours because they complained about their daughter’s primary school. 

Maxie Allen and his partner, Rosalind Levine, said they were arrested and detained on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property. 

The couple said they had previously been banned from entering Cowley Hill primary school in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire after criticising the school’s headteacher and leadership in a parents’ WhatsApp group, according to the Times.

Richard Bartholomew makes an interesting comment on this story over at The Dark Place - I've embedded his two tweets so you can see the long line of officers arriving.

The "no case to answer" outcome implies police had hoped to identify malicious intent by reviewing private electronic comms or getting the accused to incriminate themselves in interviews - i.e. they were trawling for evidence of a crime, rather than investigating an actual crime.

— Richard Bartholomew (@Barthsnotes) March 30, 2025