Police visit home of 12-year-old boy to discipline him for flicking elastic band outside school

A mother has criticised police after two officers turned up on her doorstep to discipline her 12-year-old son for flicking an elastic band at another boy. Angela Brightwell thought teachers had already dealt with the minor incident, which happened outside school two weeks earlier. Her son told her the band accidentally shot out of his hand and hit the younger boy in the face, and he had apologised. The youngster was left in tears when two police officers turned up at his Leicestershire home as he watched Saturday night TV. Angela, 42, said: "They knocked on the door at 7.05pm, asking for my 12-year-old son and asked him, 'Do you know why we are here?'.

"My son looked completely bemused and absolutely terrified." Angela said the boy, who is not being named, was then given a dressing down on the doorstep in view of neighbours and told his behaviour was "bullying" and "not acceptable". She said the police admitted the other boy had not been injured but said he was "traumatised" by what had happened. After hearing her son's version of events, the officers left and said they would take no further action. He then burst into tears. "I am very angry," she said. "I cannot believe the police would investigate something like this. Even if the other boy had a mark I still can't believe they would investigate.



"I want to know why the police were investigating a 12-year-old boy on a Saturday evening. I cannot get over it really. My son is not a bully. I'm really shocked." The incident happened at the beginning of October outside her son's secondary school. He was playing with the elastic when it shot out of his hand. Her son said he immediately ran up to the other lad, whom he did not know, to apologise, and both were taken into school to be dealt with. Angela said: "My first concern was that the other boy had been badly hurt, but they told me that he was fine, just traumatised.

"My son told me the school had sorted it out. I didn't think it was a big deal. It was an accident – he was playing with it, it flicked out of his hand and accidently hit the boy. He apologised straight away to the boy and thought that was the end of it. It's a completely trivial matter. I am disgusted by the whole thing." A Leicestershire police spokeswoman said: "The mother of an 11-year-old boy reported that her son had been flicked in the face with a rubber band by another child. Officers attended both families and advice was given. No crime was committed and therefore no investigation was launched."