A concerned parent in Norfolk who got no response from her daughter’s school decided to send a recorder to school to determine whether the nine-year-old girl was being bullied. Now the mom faces legal pushback for exercising her parental rights. “A mom simply trying to find out whether her 9-year-old child was being bullied is facing felony charges for sticking a recording device in her child’s backpack,” Scott Shackford writes in Reason.com. “Sarah Sims of Norfolk, Virginia, is telling the media that her daughter’s elementary school, Ocean View Elementary, was not doing anything about her child’s mistreatment, and administrators were not responding to her concerns. So she used a recording device to try to document evidence.”
“The device was found and confiscated. Then, remarkably, weeks later, Sims was charged with using a device to intercept oral communications and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. That first charge is actually a felony and could lead Sims to prison time.”
“Take note: Virginia’s recording laws do not require both parties to know and consent to having oral conversations recorded. Only one side needs to know. So if the child was aware of the device, it’s a bit unclear why the mother is being charged with violating the law.”
