A teacher reported she was detained overnight in a police cell for seven-and-a-half hours after seizing two iPads from her daughters.
Vanessa Brown Shares Her Ordeal
Speaking to LBC in an interview, Vanessa Brown revealed she has been kept awake at night since the March 26 incident, following allegations she had stolen the devices.
The woman, who is 50 years old, claimed she took the tablets to prompt her daughters to be diligent with their studies, which was welcomed by Surrey Police later.
Arrest and Search at Staines Police Station
Ms Brown stated she was taken to Staines police station where she was searched, fingerprints and custody photographs were taken, before she was put in a cell. Police also attended her children’s school and removed her daughter from class over the issue, she said, the force traced the iPads to Ms Brown’s mother’s home in Cobham, Surrey.
Brown Describes the Incident as Traumatic
She told LBC, “I find it quite traumatic even talking about this now. At no point did they [the officers] think to themselves, ‘Oh, this is a little bit of an overreaction for a moment, confiscating temporarily her iPads and popping over to her mum’s to have a coffee’. It was just a complete overreaction. It was thoroughly unprofessional. They were speaking to my mother, who is in her 80s, like she was a criminal.”
When she was released, the terms of Ms Brown’s bail prevented her from talking to her daughters because they were attached to the inquiry as the police continued their enquiries.
A spokesperson for Surrey Police told LBC they were originally alerted to the potential theft by a man in his 40s and officers attended a property “where the occupant was questioned about the iPads and denied any knowledge of their whereabouts”.
Police Confirm iPads Belonged to Her Daughters
They continued: “However, a tracking device on the iPads showed that they were at the address and a 50-year-old woman from Cobham was arrested on suspicion of theft. A search was then carried out using post-arrest powers and the iPads were located.”
“The woman was subsequently released on conditional bail while further enquiries were carried out. The police bail conditions included not speaking to her daughters, who were connected to the investigation, while officers carried out their enquiries. Following these enquiries, officers discovered that the iPads belonged to the woman’s children and that she was entitled to confiscate items from her own children.”
Brown Criticises Police Overreaction
Of police’s handling of the incident, the mother-of-two said: “They were able to send a police car with police officers to my children’s school, they were able to send another police car or two to arrest me… I know people are making reports of thefts, of assaults and very violent crimes in and around our neighbourhood and they’re not getting a response for days. I cannot get to the bottom of why (my arrest) was done in such a quick turnaround maybe less than an hour. All these police cars and police officers going into an address over a completely false report of a theft.”
