This past week, we’ve had trouble with the neighbours and trouble with the police. Not all of it’s big boy’s fault but somehow his very existence seems to invite trouble. Certainly, his presence on our local streets, along with his posse, seems to arouse a great deal of suspicion.

About ten days ago, big boy and two mates were sitting on a bench waiting for the bus to take them home from school. Suddenly a police van screeched to a halt and five officers jumped out and demanded to search them. Big boy was yanked up from the bench, shoved against a wall, sworn at, his pockets searched and his school bag, containing his books and gym kit, tipped out onto the pavement. When he remonstrated with the officers he was told not to give them any more ‘lip’ or they’d ‘deck’ him. One of his friends fared little better: the officers became very aggressive towards him when they found some tablets in his pocket. They accused him of having illegal drugs. The tablets were paracetamol. All this was related to me by the posse when I arrived home from work. They were clearly shaken up.

I was furious and called the local station to complain.

“It’s a question of suspicion madam,” said the Inspector on the other end of the line.

“No it’s not,” I replied. “It’s a question of your officers’ behaviour towards my child and his friends and I fail to see how sitting on a bench waiting for a bus can be described as acting suspiciously.”

“Well,” said the Inspector, “a lot of crime is committed by children against other children nowadays.”

“Since when has waiting for a bus constituted a crime?” I demanded. And so it went on until the Inspector apologised and promised to speak to the officers concerned.

A few days earlier, the police had been called to our house when a builder working on our street had seen big boy helping to shove the smallest posse member through the manhole cover that leads to our coal cellar. Big boy had forgotten to take his key to school that morning and when he arrived home he was locked out. So he decided to try and break in. I suppose the man was just trying to be a good citizen but I wondered why he hadn’t stopped to ask the children what they were doing. It wasn’t as if they were trying to hide, or were behaving surreptitiously. Luckily the police just telephoned big boy’s Dad to confirm that he lived here and then left.

Then on the morning of the World Cup Final, a neighbour knocked on the door and complained that someone had scrawled graffiti on his white car in blue felt tip pen. He had seen the children ‘down the road, looking suspicious’ and had decided that they must be to blame. In fact, the children had only left the house twice that morning and they were with me both times. The neighbour had seen them and their friends coming out of the local shop where we had all been buying crisps and popcorn before the match. But I suppose the sight of half a dozen adolescent boys gathered on a street corner was enough for him to decide that they were guilty. I explained this to my neighbour as calmly as I could but inside I was seething.

By this time, big boy was getting pretty upset too.

“Mum, does this mean I can’t go nowhere without someone thinking I’m up to somefin’? It’s not fair. I haven’t done nuffin’ wrong.”

The trouble is that big boy looks quite a bit older than his thirteen years and so do some of his friends. And, where I see a bunch of rather large, naive, confused children who sometimes behave stupidly, others see an intimidating group of young men, out to commit heinous crimes and terrorise innocent members of the public. Recent publicity about kids stealing each other’s mobile phones, joining gangs and doing drugs has probably helped to create the impression that all groups of teenage boys on the street are, by definition, up to no good. It’s hard to know what to do about this but for starters I’ve given big boy and his posse a lecture on what to do if they get stopped by the police again.

“Be polite,” I told them. “Don’t argue and give them your name and address if they ask. You have a right to be told why they are searching you and if you’re arrested and taken to the station, you have a right to make a phone-call and to legal representation. And they are not allowed to interview you unless an adult is present. Don’t get angry or indignant and don’t flap your arms up and down and say ‘hey man, woss your problem?’ - it just winds them up. Got that?”

“Yeah,” mumbled big boy and his mates and they wandered back out onto the street. I hope they were listening.

Rebecca Misell lives in London with her two sons aged 11 & 13.

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