A mother of two was left to stew in a police custody cell for more than seven hours after she confiscated two iPads belonging to her children – and was accused of theft.
Vanessa Brown, a 50-year-old history teacher, revealed the ‘unspeakable devastation and trauma’ she suffered after being taken to Staines police station.
Ms Brown was searched and had custody photographs and fingerprints taken after taking away her daughters’ devices in an attempt to ensure they were not distracted from their studies.
Surrey Police, who also visited the children’s school, pulling one of Ms Brown’s daughters out of class, have since acknowledged their error. The force said they swooped after getting a report of an alleged theft from a man in his 40s.
Ms Brown was apprehended at her mother’s home in Cobham, Surrey. Officers said a tracking device showed the iPads were at the address and she was ‘detained after refusing to cooperate.’
She was eventually returned home, only after a 12-hour ordeal that, due to her bail conditions, threatened to prevent her from seeing her children on Mother’s Day.
The incident, which follows the arrest of a couple in Hertfordshire over complaints they made about their daughter’s primary school, is likely to raise further questions about police priorities.
‘I find it quite traumatic even talking about this now,’ Ms Brown told LBC.
‘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 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.’
She said the heavy-handed approach of police, who took more than 24 hours from the moment she was arrested to inform her that no further action would be taken, had left her in a ‘catatonic state’.
‘At no point did they think to themselves, “Oh, this is a little bit of an overreaction,”‘ said Ms Brown. ‘It was thoroughly unprofessional. They were speaking to my mother, who is in her 80s, like she was a criminal.’
The Tory MP Anthony Stansfeld, the former police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley, called on police to apologise for their inexpert handling of the incident.
