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In January, a couple was arrested following their complaints about their daughter’s primary school, including messages they had shared on WhatsApp. Recently, they received £20,000 in damages from the police, who acknowledged wrongdoing in the case. Rosalind Levine and Maxie Allen had initially been detained for 11 hours while being investigated for harassment, malicious communications, and causing a nuisance on school grounds. Hertfordshire Police had defended the arrests at the time, stating they were essential for a thorough investigation.
The couple’s ban from Cowley Hill Primary School in Borehamwood reportedly followed their questioning of the head teacher recruitment process and criticisms of the school’s leadership within a parents’ WhatsApp group. Despite the ban, they continued to communicate with the school regularly concerning their daughter’s special needs. Their daughter is disabled, neurodivergent, and has epilepsy. The school later said it contacted police due to what it described as a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts from the parents, which had caused distress among staff, other parents, and governors.
On 29 January, six officers arrived at the couple’s home, which came shortly after an officer had told the family in December to withdraw their daughter from the school — advice they followed the following month. Maxie Allen, who works as a producer for Times Radio, has rejected any claims that he used abusive or threatening language, even privately. Hertfordshire Police announced a review of the incident, and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, Jonathan Ash-Edwards, criticized the situation, stating, “There has clearly been a fundamental breakdown in relationships between a school and parents that shouldn’t have become a police matter.”
Despite the resolution, Rosalind Levine expressed ongoing concerns about how the arrests were authorized by an inspector, emphasizing the impact on their family. She described how their three-year-old child witnessed the police taking her parents away, and how Levine’s elderly mother became physically ill on the same day. She hopes their case will expose failures within the police force and lead to changes preventing similar incidents in the future
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