Hertfordshire police admit unlawful arrest of couple in school WhatsApp row – report | Hertfordshire

A police force has reportedly admitted unlawfully arresting two parents in front of their nine-year-old daughter after they complained about her school on WhatsApp.

Rosalind Levine and her partner Maxie Allen said they were held at the police station for 11 hours after complaints about their daughter’s primary school.

The pair claimed they were arrested and detained by six uniformed police officers in January on suspicion of harassment, malicious communication and causing a disturbance on school property.

While Hertfordshire constabulary initially defended the arrest, it has now accepted it was unlawful and agreed to pay £20,000. Times. The force reportedly acknowledged that the legal criteria for detention were “unspecified” and formally accepted responsibility for the wrongful detention.

The couple said they were previously banned from Cowley Hill primary school in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, after criticizing the headteacher and his leadership on a parents’ WhatsApp group.

The school said it was “seeking advice from the police” following a “high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts” which it claimed had become distressing for staff, parents and governors.

Hertfordshire police said in March that the arrests were necessary to fully investigate the allegations “as is routine in such matters”.

Following the investigation, police said: “Due to insufficient evidence no further action should be taken.”

But the force’s lawyers admitted this month that criteria for an arrest under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 were not met, “therefore making the arrest unlawful”, the Times reported.

Hertfordshire police agreed to pay £10,000 to Allen, 50, and Levine, 47; This was judged by the police to be “well above what the case law requires” and reflected a “desire to bring matters to a conclusion”.

Times Radio producer Allen reportedly approached the school about the recruitment of a new headteacher in May 2024 but his inquiries were rejected.

The school’s administrators later wrote to the parents’ union about the “provocative and defamatory” comments on social media, warning that the school would take action against anyone who caused “discord”.

The Times said Allen and Levine indicated they did not believe the warnings in a private WhatsApp group, and the school later banned them from entering its facilities. Following their ban, the pair said they emailed the school “regularly” about their disabled daughter’s needs.

A police officer alerted the family to the emails in December and told them to pick up their daughter from school, the Times reported; They did so the following month, a week before the arrests.

Allen said it was “completely Kafkaesque,” claiming that he and Levine were not harassing and that he was never told what communication constituted a crime.

Levine told Sky News the incident was inexplicable to him. “We can’t understand what happened, it doesn’t make any sense. We made a few inquiries, had some banter in a WhatsApp group and then we were arrested,” he said.

Hertfordshire police told the Times: “There is no evidence of misconduct by any police officer in relation to this matter.” But police added: “The legal test for the necessity of arrest in this case was not met.”