A UK mother’s effort to improve her children’s studies landed her in jail.
According to GB News, a history teacher and mother of two daughters in the South East England county of Surrey was detained and held in jail for seven hours after confiscating her kids iPads.
Vanessa Brown was arrested on March 26, 2025, over the allegations that she has “stolen” two tablets that were traced to her mother’s house in Cobham.
After the arrest, the 50-year-old was taken to the Staines police station, where she was searched, fingerprinted, and photographed for the custody. After the procedure, she was held in the jail for several hours.
Later the Surrey Police found that the devices belonged to Brown’s daughters, and she had confiscated them in an attempt to make them study and complete their homework.
She recalled the traumatic experience and how she was left in a "catatonic state", saying, “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. They were able to send police cars to my children's school and to arrest me,” she added.
The teacher also asked that everyday people in her neighbourhood made reports about theft, assaults and violent crimes, but the police did not respond to them for days. Then why was her arrest done in a “quick turnaround”?
Former Police and Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfield condemned Surrey Police's handling of the Brown’s case.
