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Mar 25th, 2025
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Police send four police officers to tackle boy, 11, who called schoolmate 'gay'
By LIZ HULL
When two policemen turned up unannounced at Alan Rawlinson's home asking to speak to his young son, the company director feared something serious had happened.
So he was astounded when the officers detailed 11-year-old George's apparent crime - calling one of his schoolfriends 'gay'.
They said primary school pupil, George, was being investigated for a 'very serious' homophobic crime after using the comment in an e-mail to a 10-year-old classmate.
But now his parents have hit out at the police, who they accused of being heavy-handed and pandering to political correctness.
"It is completely ridiculous," Mr Rawlinson said.
"I thought the officers were joking at first, but they told me they considered it a very serious offence.
"The politically correct brigade are taking over. This seemed like a huge waste of resources for something so trivial as a playground spat."
Cheshire police launched the investigation last month after a complaint from the parents of the 10-year-old younger boy who received George's e-mail.
They said their son had been called a 'gay boy' and were concerned that there was more to the comment than playground banter and that their child was being bullied.
As a consequence, two officers were sent to the boys' school, Farnworth Primary, in Widnes, Cheshire, to speak to the headteacher who directed them to the Rawlinsons' home in nearby St Helens, Merseyside.
George told his parents that the comment was in no way meant to be homophobic and that he had simply been using the word gay instead of 'stupid'.
Mr Rawlinson, 41, who runs his own business, and whose wife, Gaynor, also 41, is a magistrate, said his son was terrified when the police arrived at their home.
He feared he was going to be arrested and locked up in a cell because of it, he added. "I feel very aggrieved about this," Mr Rawlinson, who has lodged a formal complaint against the police, said.
"We are law-abiding citizens who have paid taxes all our lives.
"I've constantly contacted police about break-ins at my business and never get a suitable response.
"George was really upset, he thought he was going to be locked up. This just seemed like a huge waste of resources for something so trivial."
Inspector Nick Bailey, of Cheshire police, said no further action would be taken against George. However, he said the force had been obliged to record the incident as a crime and that they had dealt with it in a 'proportionate' manner.
"The parents of the boy believed it was more sinister that just a schoolyard prank," Inspector Bailey said.
"We were obliged to record the matter as a crime and took a proportionate and maybe old fashioned view.
"Going to the boy's house was a reasonable course of action to take. This e-mail message was part of some behaviour which had been on going.
"The use of the word 'gay' would imply that it was homophobic, but we would be hard pushed to say it was a homophobic crime.
"This boy has not been treated as an offender."
This is a latest in a series of incidents where police have been accused of heavy handedness for interviewing or threatening children with prosecution for seemingly trivial crimes.
Last October the Daily Mail revealed how 14-year-old Codie Scott was arrested and thrown in a police cell for almost four hours after she was accused of racism for refusing to sit next to a group of Asian pupils in her class.
Teachers reported the youngster, from Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, after she claimed it was impossible for her to get involved in the class 'discussion' because only one of the Asian pupils spoke English.
She had her fingerprints and DNA taken but was eventually released without charge.
The incident followed that of a 15-year-old boy from Burnley, Lancashire, who was arrested, thrown in a police cell, hauled before the courts and landed with a criminal record simply for throwing a snowball at a car.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was prosecuted under a little used 160-year-old law last March, and fined �100 in a case which provoked a public outcry.
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Any seriously practicing Christian who raises children in a very liberal area, knows that all it takes is one nasty and complaining parent to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Alice
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Thoughtcrime will be next.
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Any seriously practicing Christian who raises children in a very liberal area, knows that all it takes is one nasty and complaining parent to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Alice Amen! It gives meaning to a liberal's existence...or at least to the State's rather intrusive existence...supported by liberals, of course.
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Thoughtcrime will be next. Yes - indeed it already is on some university campuses.
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Yeah, it does sound a little heavy handed but aren't any of you concerned about the reputation of the young boy that he has smeared?
Fr. Mike
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Dear Father Mike, I don't know if you have children or not, but in my neck of the woods, just about every child is called 'gay' at one time or another. Both my children were. It is used as one of those popular adjectives that adolescents like to use and which pop up in many different venues and to describe many different things--for instance, I have heard teens call their computers 'gay' when they are acting up! I will agree that it can definitely be more hurtful to an adolescent boy to be called 'gay' than it is to a girl, but, unfortunately it happens every single day. When it happened to my boy and my girl, I would never have called the police. I think that there are definitely more constructive and Christian ways to deal with another child hurting your child's feelings. In New York, however, I was surprised to find out that if it didn't mean 'real' ramifications for a child--(such as them getting suspended), the parents could care less what their offspring did or said to another, and seeking forgiveness in *any* situation, for the sake of being a decent human being, is often seen as 'weakness'--an undesirable trait I suppose, for their future Wall Street executives and lawyers!   In the Risen Christ, Alice P.S. There was a time, not too long ago, when 'gay' meant 'happy'. I have heard that some people in other parts of the world who learned English as a second language, have had to 'unlearn' using this word.
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And you don't think that political correctness is running amuck in the United States? I have often defined political correctness as good intentions carried to a laughable extreme. In certain situations that extreme can be beyond laughable.
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In light of what's been happening in the last seven days (i.e., Don Imus), I think it's time that everyone (children included) be involved in a discussion about words that appear hurtful to others.
I intend to make it a topic at my Sunday Rector's. It will be interesting to see what the response is.
Fr. Mike
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Granted, we shouldn't go around making hurtful statements to others. Imus certainly can be accused of poor taste, but then hasn't much of his career been built on saying things that are shocking? There is a dark side to free speech that means hearing things you don't want to hear. Also, there are no constitutional guarantees against having one's feelings hurt. I don't defend Imus and don't listen to him either. But it seems to me that we have become a bit of a society of hypersensitives with feelings on our sleeves. Perhaps it might be good to teach children how to consider the source and let some things go by without reacting to them. Sticks and stones wasn't bad advice.
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Bill from Pgh Member
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Bill from Pgh Member
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Now I'm not saying this is the right way to handle things but back in the "good ol' days", growing up in a fairly scrappy neighborhood, affronts such as this were often settled by a punch in the nose, even if it meant a bloody nose and/or black eye in return. Regardless the outcome, respect was likely to be gained not to mention new found friends. To bring parents into the fray was taboo unless the situation escalated totally out of control. There was nothing more humiliating for a kid than to have his mom or dad calling or going to "Johnny's" house to admonish him because he was picking on their kid. Peers settling differences between peers was the way it was done, and 9 times out of 10 it all worked out and all was forgotten. Then again, we had penny candy, soda fountains, bubble gum cards, etc., and I'm really not THAT old...  Times certainly haved changed. Bill
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Excuse me,
but what Imus said was ugly and he should have been fired.
No all sensitivity is a bad thing. Also, we really don't know what the boy's email said or his relationship with the boy. Maybe he's not as innocent as it seems. Admittedly sending in the police appears a bit much.
Uh, if you'll remember children no longer shrug things off they go home get guns and blasts classmates heads off. I agree some folks are hypersensitive but the sticks and stones approach doesn't work anymore. Those days are over.Aren't we supposed to bring God into every area of our lives? Well here's a good place.
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I am not so sure we bring God into our lives, at least in our society, as much as we bring out our feelings and trumpet them to anyone who will listen. I have heard it called, "the Oprah-ization of America," by one writer. I think he is saying, in other words, that we have replaced reason with feelings. I don't find that to be a desirable swap. I try to teach my students to approach things reasonably and to examine them objectively. Hysteria is not a virtue.
Last edited by byzanTN; 04/13/07 05:42 AM.
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AthanasiusTheLesser Member
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Well I agree that hysteria is not a virtue. However, I would add that I think objectivity is largely a myth; I think we can attempt to be fair, but laying aside all of our prejudices and presuppositions and becoming the "dispassionate observer" is more or less impossible, in my opinion. Also, human reason is subject to error, and emotions are part of who we are as humans. They certainly are subject to error, just as reason is, but I think it is a mistake to dismiss them.
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In light of what's been happening in the last seven days (i.e., Don Imus), I think it's time that everyone (children included) be involved in a discussion about words that appear hurtful to others.
I intend to make it a topic at my Sunday Rector's. It will be interesting to see what the response is.
Fr. Mike Father Mike, it seems then, it is a question of balance (thank you Moody Blues for that phrase). on one extreme you have a grown man calling young women "nappy headed hos" (he should have been suspended, not canned, but that is another story) and then you have the "thought police" types who need to check themselves lest they fall to their own foolishness. so, how can you expect balance in an unbalanced world? Much Love, Jonn
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