Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishAmid the horror of being told she was under arrest, Rosalind Levine remembers a flash of another, visceral, emotion.‘Pure relief,’ she says. ‘Because until that moment, I was convinced Sascha was dead.’ That was the only reasonable conclusion she could come to, given that six uniformed officers had arrived on the doorstep of her Hertfordshire home at midday and, before reading her rights, had not responded to her pleas for reassurance that her nine-year-old daughter – then at school – was safe.‘There was a moment where I honestly thought I wanted to die, because I couldn’t cope with losing her,’ she recalls.Only when the 46-year-old TV producer processed what the officers were saying did she realise she was in an altogether different horror: being arrested, with partner Maxie Allen, 50, for malicious communications, harassment and causing a nuisance on school premises.Given that two police cars and van had roared into their suburban street – ‘the sort of treatment you might expect for a drugs bust or a terrorism cell’, as radio producer Maxie puts it – you can only imagine the couple were being collared for some pretty offensive material.They had merely discussed on a private WhatsApp group of parents a disagreement with their daughter’s school. There was no offensive language, no threats, merely what Rosalind calls ‘a bit of a sarcastic tone’ – something which even the most ill-informed armchair detective would not imagine was a criminal offence. ‘Although apparently it is in Borehamwood,’ she observes.It would seem so, given that after their arrest the couple were put in police cells for eight hours before being questioned about their ‘activities’ in a manner that conjures images of Stalinist Russia. ‘It was hard to shake off the sense that I was living in a police state,’ Maxie says. Indeed, having now been told no charges will be brought after a five-week investigation they still hardly believe what happened – the reason they are speaking about their ordeal in detail for the first time today.Because they feel it poses deeply troubling questions about overreach by public bodies. Rosaline Levine was arrested with partner Maxie Allen for malicious communications, harassment and causing a nuisance on school premises but no charges were brought forward CCTV shows six uniformed police officers descending on their suburban home before they were led away in front of their crying daughter‘I certainly never set out to be a poster boy for free speech,’ Maxie says. ‘This just happened to us. These were private conversations, at no point abusive or even offensive, on email and WhatsApp.’Conversations leading to arrests, as Rosalind adds, for what seems to boil down to what she calls ‘hurty feelings’. A more unlikely pair of criminals it is hard to imagine: this eminently reasonable couple had barely even racked up a speeding ticket before their brush with the law in January.They met in 2006 while working at the commercial radio station LBC and set up home together in 2010. Two years later, they experienced tragedy when their eldest daughter Alexandra was stillborn. The couple were blindsided but have since ensured that her sisters – Sascha and three-year-old Francesca – know all about their eldest sibling. As any parent who has suffered such a horrendous loss can testify, it changes you for ever. ‘When your baby dies, it makes you think anything can happen,’ as Rosalind puts it.It meant that when Sascha came along in July 2015, the couple were especially protective, particularly since she was premature and spent time in a special baby unit.Then, aged four, Sascha had the first of many distressing seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Medication helps but has not stopped the attacks completely. She also had some development delays and is on the SEND register at school. ‘She finds school tough,’ says Rosalind.So the couple were delighted when Sascha settled well at their local primary school, Cowley Hill.‘She had a little group of friends. The teachers were very caring and nurturing and Sascha was very happy there,’ Rosalind recalls.For four years Maxie was a parent governor, although had stopped when, in November 2023, the head teacher announced his retirement. According to Maxie, the vacancy was not advertised immediately, which he believes was against Department for Education guidance (Hertfordshire County Council insists proper process was followed). ‘Essentially a state school is a public authority and its governance is a matter of legitimate inquiry, so I asked a few questions. You could say I was being a bit of a busybody – but there’s no law against that,’ he says. Cowley Hill threatened parents with action if they did not stop talking negatively about the their daughter, Sascha’s (pictured), school on social mediaWhen the chair of governors provided responses Maxie felt were evasive, he wrote to all the governors and copied it into a private WhatsApp group of around 15 parents. ‘It was essentially a mums’ group with a couple of dads – what PE kit do they need today, sort of thing. And we chuntered about it [the recruitment] a bit on there,’ Maxie recalls. Irritating perhaps and he is even accepts them being labelled ‘nightmare parents’. ‘We’re fair game for criticism and we were probably a bit of a thorn in their side – but not criminals,’ he says.Around this time the school sent a letter requesting parents did not talk negatively about the school on social media and threatened action if they did. ‘And in my opinion that was a bit over the top, because it’s not really for school to tell parents what to say in private,’ Rosalind says.She expressed this sentiment on WhatsApp, in what proved to be a particularly prescient message. ‘Can you imagine what the “action” is? “Hello, 999, one of the school mums said something mean about me in a school mum WhatsApp group. Please can you arrest them?”,’ she wrote.On July 12, the couple received a ‘warning letter’ from the chair of governors. ‘It scolded us for discussing the recruitment issue on WhatsApp groups, accused us of making inflammatory comments and threatened us with a ban from the school,’ says Maxie.‘We responded saying this was ridiculous, these were private messages and we’d not been violent or aggressive. Two days later they banned us from the school.’ Stunned, the couple suggested a face-to-face meeting to sort things out. ‘The school declined,’ says Rosalind.Under the ban, the couple could only communicate about their daughter’s education and welfare via a specific email address.That meant no parents’ evenings, no school shows, not even a first meeting with a new teacher to talk about Sascha’s medical needs. When she went on a five-day residential trip, they were not even able to wave her onto the coach. ‘It was incredibly hard for her,’ says Rosalind, her voice wobbling. ‘When I explained to her that we weren’t allowed into the school she cried her eyes out.’ You might wonder why the couple did not decide to apply for a new school. ‘We were reluctant because we didn’t want to rip her away from somewhere she was happy because of what we saw as a political dispute,’ says Maxie. ‘We also thought it wouldn’t last.’But instead, things got worse. Unable to make contact with the school in person, they had to do all communication by email. Maxie and Rosalind were banned from their daughter’s school and could only communicate about their daughter’s education and welfare via a specific email address ‘I certainly never set out to be a poster boy for free speech,’ Maxie says. ‘This just happened to us. These were private conversations, at no point abusive or even offensive, on email and WhatsApp’On December 20, the police visited. ‘The essence was not to email the school as much and that we could only contact the school once a month,’ says Maxie.‘I said he had no right to tell us this. Then he asked why we didn’t take our daughter out of the school, which really is none of the police’s business at all.’The school has said it sought police advice due to a ‘high volume’ of public comments and emails, although Maxie and Rosalind say they only ever messaged about Sascha’s needs and to go through the official complaints process. ‘In January I had no choice but to send a couple of messages about forthcoming swimming lessons which I needed to manage given Sascha’s epilepsy,’ says Rosalind.The final straw came when the couple learned that their formal grievance to be allowed back onto the school premises had failed. ‘We realised we were never going to resolve things and decided to withdraw Sascha,’ says Maxie. ‘I did offer mediation as one last throw of the dice, but got no reply.’ They found Sascha a place at another school and she attended Cowley Hill for the last time on January 24. ‘We thought that was the end of our interaction with them,’ says Maxie. ‘Then five days later we were arrested.’The couple still have no idea why, especially given they had already left the school, but the scene they go on to describe could barely be more chilling. Both were at home, where Rosalind was gathering old toys to donate to a local hospital, when she answered the door to a ‘swarm’ of officers.‘The shock was immense,’ she says. ‘They asked me if I was Rosalind, so I knew they were there specifically for me, rather than making house to house enquiries. I asked, “Is everybody okay?” Because in my head, I was thinking, “Sascha’s dead”.‘And they didn’t respond but told me to go into the house. My heart was beating so fast I thought I was going to collapse.’Only when in her living room was Rosalind told she was being arrested – as was Maxie. ‘I was on a work Zoom call in another room when I saw the officers appear via my computer camera,’ he recalls. ‘That was the most awkward end to a Zoom you could imagine.’ ‘It was hard to shake off the sense that I was living in a police state,’ Maxie says‘My first thought was Francesca,’ adds Rosalind. ‘I called to her to come to me but she was too scared and just whimpered from the hallway. It was utterly horrible.’ Maxie, meanwhile, describes what unfolded as ‘surreal, incomprehensible, nightmarish’. Even so, the couple managed to remain calm, although this did not stop the police trying to deploy handcuffs. ‘I argued against it and they gave in on that at least,’ says Rosalind.After calling her bewildered 80-year-old mother to look after Francesca – ‘I wasn’t even allowed to touch the phone, I had to give them the code so they could call her,’ she recalls – the couple were taken in separate squad cars to a custody suite in Stevenage. ‘We didn’t see each other again until we were released about 12 hours later,’ says Maxie. Both were fingerprinted, had DNA, mugshots and shoeprints taken before being led to the cells.‘I felt like I was in a terrible nightmare,’ says Rosalind. ‘I did not know how it had come to this.’Sentiments shared by her partner. ‘I honestly could not take in that I was in a police cell,’ says Maxie. ‘It was dystopian.’Rosalind recalls sobbing to a duty solicitor, saying over and over: ‘I don’t know why I am here.’ The feeling strengthened during her subsequent interview, when it became clear the on-duty detectives didn’t really know either. ‘One of them said one of the accusations was slander, which I had to point out wasn’t actually a criminal offence,’ Rosalind says. ‘And when I asked for the legal definition for malicious communications they had to look it up. They then said they had not got the evidence yet which seemed extraordinary. If someone has made an accusation of malicious communications you might think the first thing they would do is look at those communications before proceeding.’After an hour of ‘generic’ questions, both were released on bail. ‘We knew we’d done nothing wrong, but equally we also thought that whatever bizarre logic got us arrested, could get us charged, so we were incredibly anxious,’ explains Maxie.‘It was hard to sleep, really hard to think about anything apart from that we had just been in a police cell. I would shudder if I saw a police car go by, wondering if they were coming back for us.’It took five weeks for the couple to learn that the investigation had closed. ‘I got a call from a detective saying he found no evidence for these offences. I wanted to say, “I could have told you that”,’ says Rosalind. The following day the couple received a formal email stating no further action would be taken. A huge relief, of course, but one that leaves a lot of questions, not least of the potential for abuse of power by both publicly-funded authorities and the police themselves. They are questions being asked by many people since Maxie initially spoke out about their ordeal this week: the story has been covered around the world. ‘We’re fair game for criticism and we were probably a bit of a thorn in their side – but not criminals’Hertfordshire Police Chief Constable Andy Prophet justified the arrests, saying while they could have been handled more subtly, the inspector who approved them did so because he did not believe the couple would consent to a voluntary interview. ‘Well, they didn’t ask,’ says Rosalind.One wouldn’t blame them if they pursued a wrongful arrest complaint and Maxie confirms ‘we are considering our legal options’.Cowley Hill Primary School said: ‘We sought advice from the police following a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts from two parents, as this was becoming upsetting for staff, parents and governors.‘We’re always happy for parents to raise concerns, but we do ask that they do this in a suitable way, and in line with school’s published complaints procedure.’Perhaps the one thing even the police might agree on is the couple’s assertion that disagreements between citizens and public bodies should not be resolved via a thin blue line. As Maxie puts it: ‘I don’t know if we’re the first people to have our collar felt because of something like this – but I hope we’ll be the last.’
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