A MUM who was arrested after confiscating her kids’ iPads has accused the police of treating her like a murderer.
Vanessa Brown spent seven-and-a-half hours in a cell amid claims she had stolen the two devices.
Mum Vanessa Brown, who was arrested after confiscating her kids’ iPads has accused the police of treating her like a murderer
Vanessa says cops swooped on her 80-year-old mum’s house after the confiscated iPads were traced there.Alamy
Google MapsVanessa was held in a cell for seven hours at Staines Police Station – before being release on bail, with a condition she could not contact her girls[/caption]
She says she was subjected to a humiliating intimate search before being released on bail — including conditions not to contact her girls.
The case was dropped the next day after it was found Vanessa, 50, had merely confiscated the iPads to make her daughters — aged 15 and 16 — do their schoolwork.
Her ordeal had sparked calls for senior police to now apologise.
Vanessa, a history teacher, confiscated the devices two weeks ago after a row with her eldest child.
An hour later she says at least four officers turned up at her 80-year-old mother’s house after the iPads were tracked there.
Vanessa told The Sun yesterday: “They were speaking to me like I was a murderer. It was ridiculous.”
“It was made out to be this huge crime that I’d committed.
“That was the attitude of the officers. There was, I would say, dozens involved in this.
“It was so shameful. I was crying and I was worried about the kids getting home from school.
“It was like I had committed the crime of the century and I’d been convicted and I was on my way to prison forever.”
Vanessa told LBC radio the cops also spoke to her elderly mother “like she was a criminal”.
She was taken to Staines police station where she was searched, and had her fingerprints and custody shots taken before being placed in a cell for several hours.
Surrey Police also sent officers to her children’s school and pulled her youngest daughter out of a lesson.
Vanessa said of her search: “When I got to the station is when it got really troubling.
Humiliating intimate search
“There was this duty officer, a couple of them behind the counter and then behind me there seemed to be sort of six or seven officers, men and women.
“I was wearing a dress because I was about to go out for lunch before all this happened.
“This female officer searched me intimately in front of everyone in a busy area. I was so distressed. I wasn’t able to articulate words.
“I was confused. They just said ‘oh this person is going to search you’, but they didn’t explain why.
“Because at this point, I’d already been searched so I didn’t understand what I was being searched for again.
“It was like they were doing it deliberately to humiliate me. They were just despicable.”
Police were speaking to me like I was a murderer.
Mum Vanessa Brown
Later when asked what she would like to eat, she says the police were unable to provide anything suitable for her allergies.
She was freed on bail after midnight, with conditions which meant she could not speak to her daughters.
Vanessa said: “It was bail conditions for a month and it was not to speak to my children. I wasn’t allowed to contact them.
“I collapsed. I was crying. Not hysterical but I was crying. I kept saying ‘it’s Mothering Sunday. I’m going away with them. I can’t do that. They live with me’. I was just repeating that over and over.”
Vanessa’s ex-husband, a former police officer, is understood to have made an initial complaint about the row between mother and daughter and then about the alleged theft.
The case was dropped the next day. Former Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Anthony Stansfeld, a Tory MP, called on police to apologise for their handling of the case.
He said “It seems to me incompetence and a certain amount of overzealousness at a junior level, which the local inspector should have put a rapid stop to.
“It was quite unnecessary to put a reputable 50-year-old history teacher into a cell for seven hours.
“It’s hardly likely she would have absconded and I would hope the chief constable goes and apologises personally to the poor lady.”
Arrested on suspicion of theft
Surrey Police disputes four officers turned up at her mum’s address — instead claiming just two went.
Chief Supt Aimee Ramm said: “On Wednesday, 26 March two of our officers attended an address in Cobham following a report of a concern for safety.
“While they were there, a man in his 40s who was present reported the theft of two iPads.
“This led officers to carry out further enquiries at a second address, where a 50-year-old woman from Cobham was questioned about the iPads and denied any knowledge of their whereabouts.
“However, a tracking device on the iPads showed they were at the address.
“Officers encouraged the woman to return the items and resolve the matter, however the woman did not co-operate and therefore she was arrested on suspicion of theft.
“A search was then carried out using post-arrest powers and the iPads were located.
“The woman was then taken into custody where the necessary procedures were followed, which included a risk assessment, consultation with a healthcare professional, and the taking of fingerprints and custody photos.
“There was a three-hour delay between her solicitor being notified and being ready for consultation with their client.
“The woman was subsequently released on conditional bail while further enquiries were carried out to establish the ownership of the iPads.
“The police bail conditions included not speaking to anyone connected to the investigation, including her daughters.
“Officers were able to verify the iPads belonged to the woman’s children and she was entitled to confiscate these items.
“The case was therefore closed with no further action and the bail conditions which had been set were then no longer applicable.
“Officers did attend the daughter’s school, however this was in relation to the initial concern for safety.”
‘THOUGHT POLICE’ ON RISE WITH PC RAIDS
By Emily-Jane Heap
POLICE forces across the UK have been hit with accusations of overzealousness in recent months.
The Telegraph’s columnist Allison Pearson said she felt “bullied and threatened” when cops turned up at her door on Remembrance Sunday last year, accusing her of inciting racial hatred through a deleted tweet about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The case was later dropped after Essex Police concluded no crime had been committed.
Maxie Allen, 50, and Rosalind Levine, 46, were kept in a cell in January for eight hours for moaning about their daughter’s school on WhatsApp.
The Hertfordshire couple were held on suspicion of harassment and malicious communications — but a probe concluded that there was no case to answer.
Detectives doorstopped gran Helen Jones, 54, at her home in Stockport in February for calling for the resignation of Labour councillors on Facebook.
Greater Manchester Police conceded she had committed no crime.
And last month, 30 cops smashed down the door of a meeting at a Quaker house in Westminster to arrest six women discussing climate change and Gaza. The Met said the women were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance in London protests.
But officers continue to ignore shoplifting epidemic at Greggs
Exclusive by Christophe Domec and Michael Hamilton
BRAZEN shoplifters continued to blatantly grab food and drink in front of helpless staff at a theft-plagued Greggs bakery yesterday — with still no cops in sight.
A Sun team witnessed six “bake and takes” in an hour as busy staff served paying customers.
Sun reporters witnessed a stream of thefts in a Greggs store in South London, above – but there were still no cops in sight
One woman, aged around 40, sauntered in, grabbed food from the “hot and tasty” display, then stuffed four boxes of doughnuts in her bag for life at the counter.
She then grabbed two filled baguettes on her way out, but held them as her bag was overflowing.
Staff pressed a button which set off the loud public address system message, which boomed around the shop in Stockwell, South London.
It said: “This is a security announcement. Shoplifting will not be tolerated. Remotely-monitored audio and video is in use for the prevention and detection of crime.”
Our team saw more thefts yesterday — but no police.
It came after we revealed yesterday how Greggs — which has bouncers at some stores — is being targeted across the country.
Our reporters witnessed shameless stealing at 11 Greggs branches from Newcastle to Brighton.
An employee at a Greggs in Newcastle told us staff were spat at and pushed if they stepped in. Yesterday, in Stockwell, one shoplifter wearing a lanyard came in twice in two hours.
First he helped himself to potato wedges, then a pot of mixed fruit. We also saw two thefts within just one minute.
One man grabbed an item from the chilled counter and put it in his pocket before a middle-aged thief walked in, picked up several items and then left on a bicycle.
The first man returned to the fridge and nabbed a sandwich.
Another moustachioed man in a hoodie and hat smirked as he brazenly grabbed a drink, two hot treats and a chilled baguette.
Staff at the Greggs did not want to talk about the thefts.
But customer Ron Lomath, 74, said: “I know there are a lot of people who ain’t got nothing. But I still wouldn’t say it’s right to steal.”
TIME TO RESTORE THE RULE OF LAW
By Dame Diana Johnson, Policing Minister
THE Sun has done a vital public service this week, highlighting the scale of theft from Greggs stores.
And it is not just Greggs. Last year, in England and Wales, the police recorded almost half a million shoplifting offences, up 60 per cent since 2022.
First, let’s understand how this happened. The last government slashed neighbourhood policing.
Then, to compound that mistake, they introduced a new £200 threshold for “low value shoplifting”. If you stole goods below the limit, you were effectively immune from prosecution.
In 2023, Chris Philp, now Shadow Home Secretary, said “the police can’t be everywhere” and suggested the public make their own citizens’ arrests.
That is not the answer from this Labour Government. We’re scrapping the £200 limit, putting 13,000 new neighbourhood police back on the beat in this Parliament. And we’re introducing Respect Orders to ban repeat offenders from town centres.
We refuse to surrender our shops to the thieves. It’s time to bring back the rule of law.
Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
