Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world
Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email
Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email
A couple who were arrested after they complained about their daughter’s primary school on WhatsApp say they have agreed a £20k payout from the police after it admitted their arrest was unlawful.
Rosalind Levine and her partner Maxie Allen were detained by six Hertfordshire police officers in front of their young daughter on 29 January before being held at a police station for 11 hours over complaints about the school.
They were arrested on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications, and causing a nuisance on school property. The couple said the arrest came after their nine-year-old daughter Sascha’s school, Cowley Hill Primary School, in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, raised objections over them sending multiple emails and raising criticisms on a parents’ WhatsApp group.
The offending messages were never disclosed to the couple, who said that when they looked back on the parents’ group chat, the “spiciest thing” they could find was when Ms Levine called a senior figure in the school a “control freak”.
open image in gallery
The couple reportedly called a senior figure in the school a ‘control freak’ (Getty Images)
Hertfordshire Police originally defended the arrest but they have now admitted it was unlawful and agreed a £20,000 payout in damages, plus costs, according to the couple.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, Mr Allen said: “For us, the main thing really was the liability that the arrest was unlawful.
“That’s what mattered most to us, because that for us is the recognition that this is something which shouldn’t have happened, and the events really put a lot of people through the ringer. I mean, apart from us, there was our three year old daughter who was there when the police came to our house, our other daughter who missed her parents for the day, our neighbours who were left in tears, and our family members.
“So this is vindication for quite a lot of people, not just us”, he said.
When asked how the children had coped since the incident, Ms Levine told The Independent: “The girls are doing OK, however, it has been a stressful time for them as well. At the centre of all this, which at times gets forgotten, is a young vulnerable child, who was forced to move schools and leave all of her friends behind.
“Thankfully she’s settled in nicely to her new school, and they’ve all been incredible there. Francesca, our youngest, is doing well too. She started school in September and is getting on amazingly. I hope that within time we all put this nightmare behind us. In the meantime, we are pleased that the police have admitted that this arrest was unlawful and should never have happened.”
Ms Levine described the moment she opened the door to a “swarm of officers” because she thought they might be calling to tell her that their daughter Sascha was dead.
open image in gallery
The couple’s eldest child has epilepsy (Maxie Allen & Rosalind Levine)
“She has epilepsy, and people can die from epilepsy, and I just felt certain that’s what they were about to tell me. They wouldn’t tell me immediately why they were there. They asked me to go in the house, which I went in, then they asked me to go in the living room.
“It was probably no more than about 30 seconds. But those 30 seconds were, I would say, the worst of it all, because in that moment I knew that Sascha was dead. Thank God I was wrong, and I was relieved when I was just being arrested.”
The couple had been in dispute with the school for a number of months, according to The Times, after they had been banned from entering the premises, including being blocked from attending the parents’ evening for their daughter Sascha, who suffers from epilepsy and is neurodivergent and registered disabled.
The force’s lawyers admitted this month that the criteria for arrest, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, were not made out, which rendered the arrest unlawful. Hertfordshire Constabulary agreed a payout of £10,000 each to Mr Allen and Ms Levine, noting the sum was significantly above that required by the case law, according to the newspaper.
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire Constabulary said: “Whilst there are no issues of misconduct involving any officer in relation to this matter, Hertfordshire Constabulary has accepted liability solely on the basis that the legal test around necessity of arrest was not met in this instance.
“Therefore Mr Haddow-Allen and Ms Levine were wrongfully arrested and detained in January 2025. It would be inappropriate to make further comment at this stage.”
