The man arrested over a dispute with his daughter's school
The Story
ella.squire@talksport.co.uk
4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
When Maxie Allen complained to his daughter’s primary school about the recruitment process for a new head teacher, he hoped it would result in more openness and transparency. Instead six uniformed officers from Hertfordshire police were sent to arrest Allen and his partner after the school objected to them sending numerous emails and to their criticisms including “disparaging” comments on a parents’ WhatsApp group. So, is this another case of police overreach? And what does it mean for our ability to criticise and communicate privately?
This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: http://thetimes.com/thestory
Guests:
- Maxie Allen, producer, Times Radio, and
- Fiona Hamilton, Chief Reporter, The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producers: Edward Drummond and Sam Chantarasak.
Further reading:
- Police chief defends arrest of parents in school WhatsApp row
- Met Police smash down door of Quaker meeting house to arrest activists.
Get in touch: thestory@thetimes.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:44.0 | Discover more at Womblebondickinson.com. |
| 0:47.5 | When Gareth was 14, he was in a relationship with an attractive young teacher at his school, |
| 0:53.5 | and he thought he was the luckiest boy in the world. |
| 0:56.4 | But when she walked out of his life, everything started to unravel. |
| 1:00.8 | 35 years later, everyone's acting like it never happened, and Gareth wants to understand why. |
| 1:07.4 | How about the truth? How about we do that first, and then we work out where we're going to go from there? |
| 1:11.5 | How about the truth? |
| 1:12.7 | This new four-part series is about who gets to be a perpetrator and a victim. |
| 1:18.3 | To listen, just search for Lucky Boy, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:27.4 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvine Rana. |
| 1:35.6 | Imagine a fairly normal day in January. You've got a few meetings online, but apart from that, |
| 1:43.3 | your home with your family. |
| 1:45.9 | That was the kind of day that Maxie Allen, one of the producers on Times Radio, thought he was having. |
... |
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