[Closed] Assault on child - Police or not?

Would need to know more I guess. Everyone gets bullied, it's not the end of the world generally and wouldn't warrant police. Not everyone gets bricked in the face though, so I suspect thatwould warrant the police getting involved.

Depends how badly you beat them up I guess.. I'd hide behind the sofa and close the curtains just in case.

Hope you've got the full story - wouldn't be the first time that a parent ended up looking like a d*ck from not having both sides of the event

Hard to judgewithout more info. Kid on kid? School should deal in the first instance. Unless it's serious or they're not dealing get the cops involve by all means..

Annoyance mainly focused at school - who left a concussed 11 year old in school all day, not well enough to attend lessons and without consulting parents or mediacal authorities 😡

School should deal in the first instance

Yes, this seems to be the precedent - but I don't really understand why, apart from keeping it all cosy and below board...

If it was a fight in the playground, not
If it were an incident of bullying, school if its not the first time
If it was some premeditated, multiple person attack with injuries, yes

Yes, this seems to be the precedent - but I don't really understand why, apart from keeping it all cosy and below board...

to get their version of events before deciding if you need to take it further

School will always try and brush it under the carpet. Getting the plod involved will basically end your childs future at that school. Teachers are nasty and vindictive when you show them to be failing at their duties.

If you are prepared to take your child to another school, by all means. That's if you can get plod involved when their are no reliable witnesses.

School normally [s]deal with[/s] [b]ignore[/b] it inside school grounds. In my daughters case police got interested when a teacher was assaulted while protecting her - during the third assault just outside the gates. She lost clumps of hair and scrote was expelled but took a hell of a tenacious approach to get anything done.

We called police when my then 13 year old was assaulted. There was video of the incident

Attacker was suspended for 2 weeks and had a police caution

Can't fault the polices response so I'd say call them.

Right then, <rubs hands>

As a safeguarding designate in the education sector, from what you've said, the school has failed in it's duties to your child purely on the basis of the seemingly inadequate medical response.

Would need to know lots and lots more of the details but from what youve said I would be asking the following questions of the head teacher, no-one else, the head:

1. how did my child sustain a head injury?
2. who treated them and what did they decide the issue was?
3. If concussion was suspected why was the child not either taken to hospital or an ambulance called?
4. Does the school have a current safeguarding policy and a current first aid policy?
5. If yes to 4 then can the school provide evidence that the policies and procedures were followed. Documentary evidence.
6. what process is inplace to address the cause of the head injury and as per 5 what evidence is there that this is being completed?

As far as the police are concerned, there is no immunity because it happened at school. If your child had been playing out in the street and told you the sane thing what would you do?

Good advice from yossarian.

You need to find out what their policy is and if they breached it by failing to obtain medical attention for your child.

Thankfully we have not had to have the police involved with anything at school but have heard that the school my daughter is at like to deal with things internally and were very annoyed with a family that took the threat of serious harm to their daughter up with the police. The police came in and found a knife in a child's bag, but the school still was not happy!

Hope your child feels better soon 🙂

I frequently deal with the aftermath of violent incidents in school. We would always attempt to contact the parents as soon as possible, although many parents make contacting them difficult - not answering phones or not keeping frequently changed mobile numbers up to date.

We would always make sure that parents understand that reporting the incident to the police is an option that is available to them. We would NEVER encourage them NOT to report, but equally never tell them that they must. If it is a very serious incident - drugs/weapons/non-pupil involvement, then we would report it to the police anyway.

There are many reasons why some parents are reluctant to report, and many of these are community based issues. I would echo the advice to ensure you have the whole story before taking action, as I have seen egg on many a face.

The reason "or not?" - because the event happened at school

We would always make sure that parents understand that reporting the incident to the police is an option that is available to them.

That's interesting
So the school don't feel obliged to report it to the police?
Is there some sort of severity scale used to help with the decision?

I'm not sure what I would do TBH
I went to school in a very deprived inner city area in the 70s and casual, unprovoked violence was an almost hourly occurrence - and that was just the teachers, the kids used to fight and bully too of course but no where near the ferocity of the teachers.

That's interesting
So the school don't feel obliged to report it to the police?
Is there some sort of severity scale used to help with the decision?

Well since spitting on someone or pouring a cup of water over them are assaults (Scots law anyway) I'm not sure every incident one of those incidents in a school playground will be reported to the police. A stabbing would be obviously. Between the two extremes is the grey area where teachers and parents need to use their judgement.

Bearing in mind that going through the court or Children's Hearing system as a witness can be as traumatic as a minor assault.

It is the parent's choice but I would have been happy for the school to deal with minor bullying of my child without involving the police.

I was sort of trying to find the line where the school would automatically report these days as in my day it was pretty much never
just wondered - that's all

we had a couple of kids that were set on fire

Not every dead-arm is of a call to the police, but sometimes it is warranted.

We had a wee girl's hair set on fire as she walked along the corridor. That automatically involved the police due to the extreme nature of the attack.

We always reinforce with pupils and parents that an assault in school is exactly the same as an assault in the street.

Here, school was a contact sport, you had to really be trying before you'd even get a teacher's attention never mind the police.

But with this much information there's really no way to comment on this one.

I'd report it and I'm a teacher! We regularly become very frustrated by management sweeping incidents under the rug to avoid earache from the LEA or Ofsted. On the other hand we have an on site pc cos the kids are quite challenging and enjoy physical remonstration in preference to a reasoned conversation.

As an aside, on Wednesday last week a Y11 boy leapt from his seat in the middle of a lesson because his mother had sent him a text requesting his assistance in the fight his father was currently having in the shopping centre opposite our school.

And our first port of call in a disciplinary incident is to phone the parents 🙄

Is there a statutory obligation on teachers to report violence against children in E&W?

Not where I was coming from...
But this is:-

We always reinforce with pupils and parents that an assault in school is exactly the same as an assault in the street

There shouldn't be an "exemption" for inappropriate behaviour at school. And yes, when I was at school bullying and fighting was pretty much standard (if not quite acceptable). However, I do believe in progress 🙄

Our main problem was not the incident itself (quite minor) but the potential severity of an unattended head injury - nad ht emanow that it (wasn't) dealt with by the school. Police involvement a shot across the bow for the school as well as the child

so did you call the police?

if you need a kid assaulted the last person you should call is the police.. (or teachers)

they haven't really gone in for that sort of thing since Thatcher came to power..

try your local church representative..

[url=

film - Soft[/url]

great emotionally involving bullying film

Yes. NHS advised it after trip to A&E.

Police very supportive and took seriously. No-one (including us) advocating prosecution - just a "quick word" type approach.

The other boys parents and school also very supportive, although school have had to be humble due to lack of treatment / parental notification.

TBH, Welsh medium schools (in our area) seem to have an issue with sweeping things under the carpet, and local perception is that they definately do not like the involvement of English speaking authority / uniform (i.e. Police)

ETA -Thanks for the support ^. Didn't need the stuff on safegaurding / H&S / first aid policy etc, as the school were very, very apologetic.

Head of year went very white as I talked through a (no names) client company fatality of last year, which happened as a result of a very inoccuous head impact

try your local church representative

touche

dont do catholicism 😉

Glad that other agencies were more supportive than the school.

Welsh schools seem to be getting it wrong on a lot of levels currently, from what I've heard and read.

ScottChegg - Member
School will always try and brush it under the carpet. Getting the plod involved will basically end your childs future at that school. Teachers are nasty and vindictive when you show them to be failing at their duties.

If you are prepared to take your child to another school, by all means. That's if you can get plod involved when their are no reliable witnesses.

Posted 4 days ago # Report-Post

Any change to this rubbish now the post has panned out?

Getting broody or turning into TJ Markus?

Rikk - sounds like a good approach and result.

The key thing surely is that the staff will manage any future incidents better

Oh good here he is. Nothing like the advice of a non parent who's probably not set foot inside a school for 30yrs to help with your kids school issues. 😆

I prefer loitering outside the gates with a bag of sweets and a puppy

😆

Concussion? Thats serious IMO. You don't get concussion from being punched. More likely knocked over (hitting head) or kicked in the head.

If it was a bruise, scratch/fight I'd let school deal with it but concussion is all merry hell IMO.

Concussion? Thats serious

Yep - that's why we reacted the way we did

Incident itself was a "relatively straightforward"* push / trip. Resulted in a fall and base of head / top of neck hitting a metal wall bracket.

This was at 0830 - at lunch time (1300), son couldn't work out why a swipe card door wouldn't open - PE teacher explained to very confused boy that it was already open.

Immediately after incident he was shaking badly, as in cold shivvers, but felt hot. Felt that he couldn't breath because of the shaking and later suffered blurred vision. Sounds like concussion / shock to me 😕

No medical diagnosis of concussion, because he wasn't offered treatment / medical assessment
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* - but requires perpetrator to be made aware of possible consequenses of his actions...

School swept it under the carpet when I threw someone out of a window for bullying me. If anything, they were relieved somebody stood up to him..

I was quite surprised how much strength I had when seeing red!

Would need to know more I guess. Everyone gets bullied, it's not the end of the world generally and wouldn't warrant police. Not everyone gets bricked in the face though, so I suspect thatwould warrant the police getting involved.

If it's not the end of the world for a child, then presumably you as an adult - bigger, tougher, more resilient in theory - would ALSO not consider it the end of the world to be physically assaulted in exactly the same ways that you're imagining? You would not think it worth calling the police if someone assaulted you in whatever ways you're imagining as not worth it for a child, on however regular a basis that you're imagining?

And if it's supposed to make a difference that the person who assaulted the child was a juvenile, presumably you also would not consider it worth reporting if a juvenile assaulted you as an adult? Even less worth reporting in fact, because you can physically defend yourself against one better and are not forced by law to be in the same vicinity as them on a regular basis as children are at school.

Is that right? I'd just like to know whether you apply this not-worth-reporting principle to apply equally to all ages or whether there is a strange conditioned belief in society that being assaulted by someone of the same age and size is somehow more traumatic when you're an adult than when you're a child.

You joined to comment on a 4month old thread?

Yeah, that's slightly odd - can only assume he has sopmething similar going on and Googled it. but;

Surely you don't believe that it's not as bad to be assaulted as a child as it is as an adult?

Course it's not as bad! I've been beaten up / been in fights as a kid, and also had a fair few scraps in my 20s (not through choice). The playground fights tended to end with a sticky plaster, or at worst, a black eye. The adult ones usually ended in hospital for someone.

@user-removed

But then you're not comparing like with like. Sometimes children DO put other children in hospital, it's not as rare as you'd think, and MOST adult-on-adult assaults are just as minor as most playground incidents - a slap in the face, spitting, a punch that leaves no mark, a hard shove for example. This minor stuff happens all the time in the streets, and I don't see eyebrows raised when adults report it to the police.

So my question is, should adults ALSO stop running to the police when they get an equally minor slap or shove or threatening remark, as they do currently? If he believes they should, I have no problem with that.

I just have this uncomfortable fear that there are people walking around with the belief that two exactly equal injuries, each caused by unprovoked assault by someone of equal size, vary in their significance according to the age of the victim.

optifog - I agree - are you speaking from experience - what sent you here today?

rkk01,

If it is concussion you need to report to the police for assault.

This is a serious injury as you do not know what injury the kid has received to his/her head. Need proper medical check up.

Then sue the hell out of the school for trying to be politically correct, being coward and get massive compensation.

Fire the teacher, disciplinary master and the headmaster for being coward and incompetent. Plenty of good people are looking for jobs nowadays so they should go ... unless they can be forgiven.

As for the parents of the other kid ... sue them too and give the bully the corporal punishment and public humiliation ...

😡

optifog - I agree - are you speaking from experience - what sent you here today?

What brings me here is existential-type OCD, since you ask.

Existential OCD can include the compulsive seeking of answers to the question: "are people basically good?" Well that's not exactly how I'd word my obsession, but it's related. I'm haunted by the fear that society in general is morally inconsistent and biased against certain groups in ways that would make me crushingly depressed if I knew for sure. Right now the issue I fear people are unjust about is the assault of children, but it's been a few very different, even contradictory ones before. I'm reassurance-seeking right now which is not recommended, but I just want to do a bit while it's first flared up again, and then, the plan is, I'll stop. I know it's a weird thing to be obsessed about, most obsessions ARE weird, but knowing that doesn't make the anxiety or intrusive thoughts go away.

I'm hoping that CoffeeKing will respond in a way that proves my interpretation of his post totally wrong.

Chewkw

You do know that the op was 4 months ago right ?

Muke - Member

Chewkw

You do know that the op was 4 months ago right ?

Do'h!