In an alternative universe: “Police and child services have been criticised for doing nothing after a young boy was found selling air fresheners to feed himself”
Well sounds harmless, but I can understand why they would want to keep an eye on that. It could have been a sign of something really serious.
The school were right to raise their concerns. While on the face of it this was a young boy selling air fresheners, it could have been something much more sinister. Recruiting and exploiting young children by criminal gangs (County Lines) for drug running or distribution is a known risk, as is sexual exploitation.
The Police had a duty to share the information with Children’s Social Care who in turn had a duty to make their own enquiry’s. From the article it sounds like this involved nothing more than an initial phone call from Children’s Services which would have been necessary to discuss the referral from the police with the family.
I think it’s a case of you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Imagine if it a was a young boy being exploited and at risk but posing as selling air fresheners. Referral gets made but nobody goes and talks to the boy or the family as they chalk it up to ‘just a kid selling air fresheners’. The outcome would be very different.
One phone call from the school to parents plus conversation with the boy would resolve it.
*Mum’s fury at three public services watching out for her children’s well-being*
They probably assumed he was selling drugs and called the cops over that.
What the Greater Manchester Police found was more tragic than illegal, a boy reselling perfectly legal goods just to get by.
I hope that kid stays clean and becomes a successful entrepreneur one day. Showing a knack for business like this at nine years old is less common than you think, and it’s probably best to make sure he never goes down the criminal path, because business smarts like this in the criminal world leads to drug barons and kingpins…
I am shocked at the sensible nature of most of these comments.
I used to sell cigarettes and snacks at school at a decent mark up. I thought this was fairly normal in schools
Genius kid, I did something similar with Candy Canes in winter, box of them for a quid and I was on the playground shifting at 50p each, festive treats come and get them!
The teachers also lost it and tried to preface it as, you can’t operate a business on school grounds and I’m like well its no different to your tuck shop.
9 comments
In an alternative universe: “Police and child services have been criticised for doing nothing after a young boy was found selling air fresheners to feed himself”
Well sounds harmless, but I can understand why they would want to keep an eye on that. It could have been a sign of something really serious.
The school were right to raise their concerns. While on the face of it this was a young boy selling air fresheners, it could have been something much more sinister. Recruiting and exploiting young children by criminal gangs (County Lines) for drug running or distribution is a known risk, as is sexual exploitation.
The Police had a duty to share the information with Children’s Social Care who in turn had a duty to make their own enquiry’s. From the article it sounds like this involved nothing more than an initial phone call from Children’s Services which would have been necessary to discuss the referral from the police with the family.
I think it’s a case of you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Imagine if it a was a young boy being exploited and at risk but posing as selling air fresheners. Referral gets made but nobody goes and talks to the boy or the family as they chalk it up to ‘just a kid selling air fresheners’. The outcome would be very different.
One phone call from the school to parents plus conversation with the boy would resolve it.
*Mum’s fury at three public services watching out for her children’s well-being*
They probably assumed he was selling drugs and called the cops over that.
What the Greater Manchester Police found was more tragic than illegal, a boy reselling perfectly legal goods just to get by.
I hope that kid stays clean and becomes a successful entrepreneur one day. Showing a knack for business like this at nine years old is less common than you think, and it’s probably best to make sure he never goes down the criminal path, because business smarts like this in the criminal world leads to drug barons and kingpins…
I am shocked at the sensible nature of most of these comments.
I used to sell cigarettes and snacks at school at a decent mark up. I thought this was fairly normal in schools
Genius kid, I did something similar with Candy Canes in winter, box of them for a quid and I was on the playground shifting at 50p each, festive treats come and get them!
The teachers also lost it and tried to preface it as, you can’t operate a business on school grounds and I’m like well its no different to your tuck shop.