A UK school was plunged into lockdown as eight police officers stormed the building following what a parent described as a row over a school uniform. A mother of a Year 9 pupil said she found herself locked in the school’s reception after her daughter called saying she was being “aggressively screamed at” and “forced” into an undersized jacket.
After a two-and-a-half-hour argument between the parties, Harris Academy in Wimbledon, southwest London, saw pupils held in their classrooms as police conducted interviews, the mum described. “I was treated like a US school shooter,” the 35-year-old told MailOnline. “It’s not acceptable in any way, shape or form. It was just disgusting. There was no need for a lockdown. I was no threat at any point. My daughter is really overwhelmed by it all. She is terrified I was going to be arrested.”
On the morning of the incident, the 13-year-old pupil mixed up her blazer and was forced to wear her Year 7 jacket to school. While walking between lessons, a teacher stopped the child to question why she wasn’t wearing her blazer.
Despite explaining her case, the girl was allegedly told she was “lying” repeatedly before the teacher demanded she put on the blazer in front of an entire class.
The mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that “being made to put on a very small blazer in front of children is very humiliating.”
The child initially refused to put the blazer on, which is when the teacher began “screaming at her aggressively”. The mother explained how the jacket “doesn’t get past the top of her arms”.
“He threatened her with detention, threatened to put her in isolation so she ran away and called me immediately in tears,” she said. After the mum arrived at school, she was allegedly told her daughter would be taken out of lessons while the situation was investigated – an offer which was later retracted.
A meeting between the accused teacher was denied, she says, as well as an immediate probe into the incident, which is when the event is said to have turned unpleasant. The mother began live-streaming the stand-off on Facebook, with dozens of parents watching online. She was reportedly locked in the reception area after staff left.
The situation dramatically escalated, as the school was plunged into lockdown with eight police officers marching through reception at 10.30am. Interviews with all parties took place before the parents left four hours later.
A spokesperson for Harris Academy Wimbledon said: ‘We cannot comment on individual students or their parents.
“At Harris Academy Wimbledon, our priority is the safety and security of our students, staff and parents and we are grateful for the police’s support in helping us manage this matter.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “Police were called at around 10.30am on Wednesday, March 5, to a school in Wimbledon to reports of a disturbance involving a parent.
“Officers attended the scene and spoke with a number of parties – including the parent – and no further action was taken by police.”
