There are calls for Surrey police to apologise this week after a mum-of-two was arrested and spent 7 hours in custody after confiscating her children’s iPads.

History teacher Vanessa Brown, 50, confiscated her kid’s devices so that they could focus on their schoolwork, only to wind up in a prison cell at Staines police station for most of the day.

After confiscating the devices, Vanessa took them with her to her 80-year-old mother’s house. When the iPads were reported stolen, police traced them to the address, and arrested Vanessa for being in possession of them, even though she explained that she had taken them from her daughters so that they could focus on school.

Speaking to LBC, Vanessa said:

“I find it quite traumatic even talking about this now.

“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.”

As if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, police also turned up at her children’s school and pulled them out of class. A spokesperson for Surrey Police told LBC that a man in his 40s had alerted police to a potential theft, with tracking devices on the technology leading officers to Vanessa’s mother’s house.

The spokesperson said:

“Tracking device on the iPads showed that they were at the address and a 50-year-old woman from Cobham was arrested on suspicion of theft. A search was then carried out using post-arrest powers and the iPads were located.

“The woman was subsequently released on conditional bail while further enquiries were carried out. The police bail conditions included not speaking to her daughters, who were connected to the investigation, while officers carried out their enquiries.

“Following these enquiries, officers discovered that the iPads belonged to the woman’s children and that she was entitled to confiscate items from her own children.”

Well, at least they got to the bottom of it in the end, but it’s just so outrageous that they arrested the poor woman and stuck her in a jail cell for 7 hours until they figured it out. Was that really necessary?

Furthermore, Vanessa’s bail conditions meant she wasn’t able to speak to either of her daughters ahead of Mother’s Day on March 30, as inquiries were still ongoing at that time. How unbelievably stupid is that?

Questions are being raised over the length of time it took for officers to determine that no further action needed to be taken against Vanessa (over 24 hours in total).

Former Police and Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfield condemned Surrey Police for their handling of the case and suggested that the force should apologise.

“It seems to me incompetence and a certain amount of overzealousness at a junior level, which the local inspector should have put a rapid stop to.

“It was quite unnecessary to put a reputable fifty-year-old history teacher into a cell for seven hours. It’s hardly likely that she would have absconded abroad and I would hope that the chief constable goes and apologises personally to the poor lady.”

One question that hasn’t yet been answered though: who the hell was the man in his 40s who reported the iPads stolen? Her husband? An ex with an axe to grind? One of her daughters putting on a deep masculine voice? Either way, the police reaction was OTT and it just seems nuts that they couldn’t get to the bottom of it sooner.

For the daughter who was jailed for life after killing both her parents and living with their dead bodies for FOUR YEARS, click HERE.