Police blasted as mum is arrested for confiscating youngsters’s iPads | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Police have been advised to prioritise “real crime” after a mum was arrested for confiscating her youngsters’s iPads. Vanessa Brown was held for almost eight hours in a police cell after being accused of stealing the 2 units.

The historical past trainer says she took the iPads to encourage her children to deal with their faculty work whereas popping to her mum’s for a espresso. Officers had tracked the units to the house of the grandmother, in her 80s, after being alerted to a possible theft. They then hauled within the mum-of-two for questioning earlier than looking her, in addition to taking fingerprints and custody mug photographs.

Officers additionally pulled one among her daughters out of a category in school. Ms Brown, 50, was lastly returned to her mum’s home 12 hours after the preliminary arrest.

She was additional devastated to be taught that her bail situations would imply not chatting with her youngsters – with Mother’s Day in only a few days’ later. Surrey Police mentioned a monitoring machine confirmed the iPads had been on the tackle and she or he was detained after refusing to cooperate.

The incident is the most recent in a string of controversial police responses after the mother and father of a nine-year-old lady had been arrested having complained about their daughter’s main faculty in a WhatsApp group.

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg mentioned the police have to get their priorities proper.

“It is bizarre. I don’t perceive why shoplifting is ignored by the police whereas a mom is held for eight hours for confiscating her youngsters’s iPads,” the previous Tory Cabinet minister mentioned.

“The police must prioritise real crime and get a grip.”

Speaking to LBC about the incident, Ms Brown said: “I find it quite traumatic even talking about this now.

“They were able to send a police car with police officers to my children’s school, they were able to send another police car or two to arrest me.

“I know people are making reports of thefts, of assaults and very violent crimes in and around our neighbourhood, and they’re not getting a response for days.

“I cannot get to the bottom of why it was done in such a quick turnaround, maybe less than an hour – all these police cars and police officers going to an address over a completely false report of a theft.”

The pressure mentioned a search operation for the units had begun after a person in his 40s alerted them to their attainable theft, having already been known as out to a “concern for safety” on March 26.

Surrey Police are dealing with calls to apologise to Ms Brown, after it took greater than 24 hours from the purpose of arrest to tell her no additional motion can be taken.

“At no point did they think to themselves, ‘Oh, this is a little bit of an overreaction’”, Ms Brown mentioned.

“It was thoroughly unprofessional.

“They were speaking to my mother, who is in her 80s, like she was a criminal.”

Ms Brown’s therapy has been criticised by Anthony Stansfeld, the previous police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley, who known as on the pressure to apologise.

“It seems to me incompetence and a certain amount of overzealousness at a junior level, which the local inspector should have put a rapid stop to,” he mentioned.

“It was quite unnecessary to put a reputable 50-year-old history teacher into a cell for seven hours.

“It’s hardly likely that she would have absconded abroad and I would hope that the chief constable goes and apologises personally to the poor lady.”

Tory MP Neil O’Brien, mentioned: “This is beyond absurd. People are having phones snatched all the time and police won’t follow up even when they know where they are, yet a law abiding person can end up in a cell for hours on end for taking away their own kids’ iPads.”

Chief Superintendent Aimee Ramm, Surrey Police’s Northern Divisional Commander mentioned: “A tracking device on the iPads showed that they were at the address.

“Officers encouraged the woman to return the items and resolve the matter, however the woman did not cooperate and therefore she was arrested on suspicion of theft.

“A search was then carried out using post-arrest powers and the iPads were located.

“The woman was subsequently released on conditional bail while further enquiries were carried out to establish the ownership of the iPads.

“The police bail conditions included not speaking to anyone connected to the investigation, including her daughters, while officers carried out their enquiries.

“Following these enquiries, officers were able to verify that the iPads belonged to the woman’s children, and that she was entitled to confiscate these items from her own children.”

Ms Brown’s detention got here a month after two mother and father from Hertfordshire revealed they suffered an analogous ordeal, having complained about their daughter’s main faculty in a WhatsApp group.

Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine had been detained in entrance of their younger daughter by six officers earlier than being left in a cell for eight hours.

They had been questioned on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and inflicting a nuisance on faculty property, however Hertfordshire Constabulary ultimately discovered there needs to be no additional motion after a 5 week investigation.

Mr Allen mentioned it confirmed “massive overreach” from the pressure in what he described as a “completely Kafkaesque” situation.