A British mother was arrested and jailed for over seven hours, and nearly barred from seeing her children on Mother's Day—all for confiscating her daughters' iPads to help them focus on schoolwork.
On March 26, Vanessa Brown, a 50-year-old history teacher from Surrey, England, found herself at the center of a bewildering legal ordeal, according to LBC. It began after a man in his 40s contacted Surrey Police to report a potential theft involving two iPads.
Officers were also responding to a "concern for safety" call, leading them to Brown's mother's home in Cobham, where the devices were located via tracking software.
Believing the iPads were stolen, officers arrested Brown, took her to Staines police station, fingerprinted her, and placed her in a holding cell for seven and a half hours. Despite her explanation that she had merely taken the devices away from her children to encourage academic focus, police treated the matter as a criminal investigation.
Officers even went so far as to question Brown's elderly mother and remove her daughter from class for questioning. To make matters worse, Brown was placed on bail conditions that initially prevented her from seeing her children over the upcoming Mother's Day.
Brown was finally released close to 1 a.m., nearly 12 hours after the incident began. It reportedly took police more than 24 hours to acknowledge that no crime had been committed and that the iPads belonged to her daughters.
Surrey Police later confirmed she had the right to confiscate the devices. The incident sparked widespread criticism about police priorities and the use of resources, especially in light of rising concerns about delayed responses to actual violent crimes in the region.
Former Police and Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfeld called on the Surrey Police to apologize personally, citing incompetence and overreach.
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