If you think things are getting bad here in the United States, just glance at the insanity currently taking place across the pond. And if you think the same can’t happen here, think again.
Several parents in the U.K. were recently arrested for - get this one - complaining about their schools’ hiring process on a group chat app.
You read that correctly. According to The Daily Mail, Times Radio producer Maxie Allen, 50, and his domestic partner, Rosalind Levine, were arrested and held for 11 hours at the local jail after police said they complained about the teacher recruitment process at their daughter’s primary school in a chat on a WhatsApp, a private messaging and calling app. The couple were concerned over the fact that an open recruitment process had not yet begun to fill the impending vacancy that would be left by a teacher who was about to retire. When Allen, a former governor on the school’s board himself, asked about the ongoing hiring process or apparent lack thereof, he said his questions weren’t answered.
Another school governor then began threatening school action against supposed “inflammatory and defamatory” comments she claimed were being made on social media and causing “disharmony.” Allen and his partner were summarily banned from school property, causing them to miss school events involving their nine-year-old daughter, who they said is also registered as disabled.
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That’s all it took for six uniformed police officers to show up to their suburban home and haul the couple away in handcuffs, all in front of their hysterical child. The incident was caught on the couple's home security camera.
EXCLUSIVE from @Fhamiltontimes
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) March 28, 2025
Police sent six uniformed officers to arrest two parents who complained about their school on a WhatsApp group
Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine were put in a cell for eight hours by Hertfordshire police after sending emails to their primary school… pic.twitter.com/63AfWxRAgO
They were then accused of harassment and “malicious communications,” as well as “causing a nuisance on school property” - despite saying they hadn’t even been to the school since June of last year.
Allen and his partner were held by police for nearly half a day before authorities finally determined there was no case to be made against them.
The incident comes amid a disturbing trend of U.K. residents being arrested and even charged and booked for displeasing some government overlord. Arrests for “offensive” social media posts have become all too common, with some U.K. authorities even threatening to charge and extradite U.S. citizens for “egging on” violence - i.e., posting comments the U.K. government doesn’t like - on social media from the United States.