General Chat

At my daughter's school.....some little rat bags kept letting the fire alarms off.

Apparently the parents of the culprits (thank gawd not mine lol) are going to be charged for the fire service's call out....as they were set off three times it's about £1800.?

Understand it totally in one respect.......not so sure about it in others.
Can't see any parent having that sort of cash on the hip..I sure haven't lol
Anyone else heard of this before?

Sounds like,,,,

making an example of,,,,,Muffs,

this may have dual purpose........child gets a verbal of parents and maybe a stop of some gadget for a week ,,,,,other parents threaten their little darlings -----***Dont you dare do anything like that*** or else.

Perhaps the parents need to challenge it.?

Does sound like it Kay.

Hope it works !!! BUT do wonder how it can be enforced. x

let's hope it deters them from ever making malicious 999 calls to the fire brigade in the future

Muffy I have never heard of this before, Im presuming this is High School??

Yes it's a high school Mersey.

It's a new one on me too !!!

I have heard that the Emergency services can charge for hoax call outs but not read or heard about it actually happening. Although it seems a lot of money I suppose it would be about right for 3 call outs. If more than one family are involved I would think they should share the call out fee. I wouldn't have had that sort of money either nor would my D now if one of hers did anything so stupid.
Hope the culprits realise now how stupid they were.

They'd need to be about 100 of them involved for me to afford it Gins lol x

If it's a first offence then I feel it is rather steep. Not that I disagree with it in principle but the amount seems a bit harsh if it has come out of the blue. As you say, who just happens to have that amount of money hanging around.

I'm inclined to think the little darlings have done it before and/or been warned and/or threatened with this action.
Perhaps the fire brigade are fed up with it and are threatening to charge the school.

The school is a new build and i know they had teething troubles with the fire alarms and sprinkler systems at the beginning...so maybe that's it Karen x

Unless there is proof then I doubt they could charge them but if they can prove it I certainly hope they do charge the parents, I personally think its sending out the correct message :-D

Yes it's deffo them Hayley..caught on CCTV apparently x

Excellent ...charge the parents :-D

Im glad Looby is in junior school.....mind you she was given a 5 page document to bring home regarding the new fire alarm system that was fitted just before Christmas, it was an open document and she had tried to read some of it ....poor thing got it into her head there was going to be a fire and what happens....It took us ages to reassure her ..........

If the fire brigade are charging the school then the cost would come out of the school budget which would mean less spent on the children's education. If it is true presumably the parents would be able to arrange to pay in installments if they didn't have the full amount upfront.

If find hitting people where it hurts is most effective in getting them not to do something again. The most vulnerable spot most people seem to have is in their wallets.

I couldn't believe it when she told me...first thing i said was......*it's not you is it*....noooooooo don't be silly she said *phew*.....anyhow because I'm nosey i rang up a couple of other parents to make sure she wasn't having one of her chinese whisper moments.....but no...she was bang on..the whole school know of the punishment...can't see anyone else having a go after that !!! so mission accomplished I guess.

Just never heard of it before.

Sorry for going off the subject :-(

Aaaw i've just seen your post Mersey.... BLESS HER..funny how things like that play in their heads isn't it.......and those school docs do drag on a bit lol

My husband broke his leg playing football in London years ago, and we were told that the ambulance that brought him home would charge us for the journey, as we lived out of Lonsdon, they never did. I think it's one of those things, they can charge but only do in exceptional circumstances.
Perhaps the girl at your daughters school is just being told that as a bit of a frightener, so she doesn't do it again?

over here, if you have an alarm, and it is set off falsely 3 times .......... the police will not respond again, and the fire station MAY also refuse to attend.

PLUS, we have to buy a permit from the City for the alarm ................. and the cost is greatly increased if you have had multiple false or hoax calls.


Now .......... it does sound too extreme for them to refuse to attend at a school ..................... but could it be that the school has to, or has been threatened that it might, have to pay much more than it already is