police bail checks

[oubstudent]

My son was arrested in feb o8 along with 6 others. they were all placed on police bail with no charges but a curfew between 9pm and 7am. since feb 19th the police have called at our house 37 times, only 8 before midnight the rest between 12 and 6am. He is a 15 yr old school child going through his gcse's. The police have even called very recently 6 times within 42 hours. This wakes up my other 3 sons and my immediate neighbours. Is this classed as reasonable behaviour?

[lawstudent]

the police are not breaking the rules of bail however you could seek furthur advice from your citizens advice bureau or go to the police and file a complaint. if your son has broken curfews in the past or this time then they may doing it to make sure he does not do it again by showing they can come whenever. if you have the terms of his curfew then it may state to what extent the police may visit like max times a day or week, if so challange this to them. it will be over soon as he is under 16 and can only have it for 3 months by law. but early in the morning is unacceptable, so i would advise you to go to the police and see under what rights they can do this, hope i could help

[Ethel]

It is reassuring to know the police are doing their job.

The alternatives of course are a bail hostel, remand centre or tagging.

[oubstudent]

Did I forget to mention that nov 06 he was accused by a boy at his school of wounding with a compass. The same police officer took all statements, victim, victims friend and my sons. We were dragged to court (and adjourned) until end of April 07 when it transpired that CPS had not given our solicitor the victims friends statement in their bundle. Resulting in this the district magistrate READ the friends statement in court for himself before it being passed to our solicitor for reading and subsequently told the police officer to stand outside the courtroom, NOT talk to anyone because she was still under oath and he called for an enquiry as the friends statement DID NOT support anything his friend had said. the judge then APOLOGISED to us and said it WOULD be going further. oh by the way my son is mixed race and the other child was white. My son is a grade A student the other boy is a persistent truant and shop lifter.

[suse17]

y have you found it nesassary to write down sons colouring r u implying they are picking on him

[themas]

Find out from the 6 others who are also on curfew whether the police are visiting them just as often. If they are not, then it would stengthen your case to make a complaint about the number & timing of the visits to you.

If police think it is really necessary to do this sort of thing with this frequency it seems to me it would be a better use of their time if your son (& the other 6) was tagged.

[randyraven]

It seems that your son has been accused of stabing another pupil and at School !
My god ...no wonder the police are taking this serious.

Things in the press at the moment ....
1) School knife crime.
2) Crime being conducted by persons while on bail.

[oubstudent]

to randy raven= did you actually READ what was posted. the incident DID NOT even happen and my son was in school all day. what I said in my post was that the 'victim' who happened to be a persistent truant had no intention of going to school on that day and to cover his behind he fabricated a story which his friend DID NOT corroborate, the friend was NOT willing to go to court and the CPS carried forward with the prosecution regardless. His friend even said in his statement that "the boy had no marks on his hand outside of school in the morning and the first the friend saw of them was when they returned to school after his mum had called his mobile phone." (friends words from his statement) So now please tell me that the police were correct in their actions. AND why would a district magistrate call for an ENQUIRY and APOLOGISE to my son (as well as the CPS solicitor apologising in the courtroom) if the police were correct in their actions. By the way I am also white and I always thought the race card was overplayed but until you are in the position we are look at all sides before saying ahhh well its their job! If you can't do a job objectively and properly then you shouldn't be doing it.

[oubstudent]

To ethel= the police have to go to court and prove you have done something wrong to get you tagged, or put in a bail hostel, and as for doing their job do you agree that they didn't waste tax payers money pursueing a conviction on something that didn't even take place.

To suse 17 = Yes, after going through this kind of thing for the past three years I am implying that somebody at my local nick has a vendetta against my son or worse family.

to themas = The most visits that one of the other 6 has had is 19, and only 7 of those have been between midnight and 6am. Also the other 6 have all finished school but do have either jobs or college courses.

[Mamjet]

If it stops the little wannabe Gangsta stabbing and killing someone, I say visit all hours.

[randyraven]

Sounds like a nice School !

Glad the police are at least trying to contain things.

If you think the police are victimising you ...then file a complaint against them. Simple as that.

Still at least while they are on your case ..we have less on corners with radar guns :-)

[themas]

I do wish people would read posts properly before shooting their mouths off. Some of the comments on this thread are not at all helpful, and are pretty pointless.

The way I have read this, the present incident (arrest in Feb. 08) is entirely unconnected with the alleged incident in school in Nov. 06, except that the same police officer may have been involved in both (this is not clear to me from your posts). In any case, the same police force is involved and their actions in the Nov. 06 issue were the subject of an enquiry after the hearing.

You now have an issue because the police have been checking on your son far more frequently than on any of the other 6.

If the above is an accurate summary then it seems to me that, unless they have some good reason to do so (for example, your son is believed to be the instigator or ringleader of the alleged offence) this can reasonably be the subject of a formal complaint to the police force. You can look up on the internet how to go about making such complaints, which can eventually end up with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, if not resolved at an earlier stage.

[randyraven]

You have to ask yourself ....

Why are the police doing this ?
They are audited on how they spend their time and logs on your visits must be kept.

I find it hard to belive that the police have not got better things to being with their time, than knocking on your door at all hours.

So you have to ask yourself why ?

Victimisation ? Well it would be a brave policeman/woman who put their career on the line ...to honest I dont think they would see you or your son as worth it.

So maybe they have another reason ?
You need to think hard why ?

[oubstudent]

Thanks ethel = the solicitors have today told us to get in touch with the IPCC and after speaking to them thay are very sure we have a legitimate complaint about the local police. Yesterday the same solicitor said we must go to the local nick and the custody sergeant was putting the curfew hours from 9pm to midnight. This was done at 5.30pm and guess what? they still ended up on my doorstep at 12.30am, so with the solicitor on the end on my mobile I answered the door and she quietly listened while I informed the officers of the change in the curfew times and he called me a liar and said that they could call any time they liked between 9pm and 7am. Even when I showed him the reviewed bail sheet he took 8 minutes and a radio call to the nick to clarify it even when he had the paperwork in his hand!!! And this was the same copper that had called at 11.50pm, 1.27am and 5.10am (same 5hr 20 minute period)
As for my son being a 'gangsta' do you presume every mixed race child wants to be one. He happens to be planning to go to uni to become a sports teacher!
And yes the school is a nice one the headteacher also stuck up for my son against the police and said he would not put up with my son or any other kids being arrested from school.

[oubstudent]

sorry thanks to themas too. My sons have all gone to school with all having 100% attendance unless ill. I am doing a degree to become a teacher and although we are a one parent family I have a job and we dont scrounge.

[randyraven]

"As for my son being a 'gangsta' do you presume every mixed race child wants to be one."

Why are you so racist !
You keep on assuming that your son is in bother because he is mixed race. Being mixed race does not make you a bad person.
If aliens came to this planet they would be amazed.