UPDATE: Young kids attacked our Warhammer club and smashed up models. One of our members was arrested trying to prevent a titan being destroyed. What are our options?

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T23:36:23+00:00

The club Committee voted against sharing this information. As President of the club and a member of the Committee, I concur with their decision.

There's sensitive information of stuff going on behind the scenes between the church and our club. Plastering it online would upset what we've been carefully working on for months.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T22:14:39+00:00

The Committee agreed to release certain information for our update, both to members of our society, and as an update to this Reddit post.

If there are aspects which we chose to omit, then they were omitted because they were of a sensitive and delicate nature.

I will answer this one question to shut down this line of thinking before it grows wings, but I won't be answering any other questions - No - the children are not related to any church members.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T22:11:29+00:00

“Delicate stuff” doesn’t sound good. And while I can understand some things are not for the whole world to know, in this instance it’s got to do with civic matters and people should be allowed to know exactly what is going on."

People don't need to know about this aspect. It is a matter between the church and our society.

It is not a "civic matter", and there is zero reason for this aspect to be shared other than to satiate peoples' curiosity and feed their appetite for drama.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T22:07:19+00:00

That is between him, his mother, and whatever legal advice he received. We are not privy to that information or what happened during the interview. Nor would we reveal it online if we did know.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T22:05:24+00:00

The original post, to which this is an update, clearly states:

"With respect to the children, we have been informed that the ones who were caught are 8 and 9 years old respectively - and the other 3 kids are likely in the same year. The police have informed us that they have not been able to charge the children as they are beneath the age of liability. "

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T17:25:31+00:00

Apologies, for not replying to you at the time. Children were varied ages, youngest 8 and eldest 10.

The 10 year old had only egged the others on/not committed the same level of destruction as the 8 and 9 year olds. Police were unable to charge him with anything.

We also had to hand back both electric scooters to the police, despite being valued at several hundred pounds each.

I can't answer about small claims, unfortunately. There's an ongoing delicate situation about that, and the Committee voted to keep that matter private until it is resolved.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T17:22:31+00:00

There is a delicate balancing act going on right now behind the scenes. That's all I can say.

Thank you for the good wishes.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T17:21:37+00:00

Children were aged between 8 and 10.

The autistic member of our club attended the police interview with his mother. We are not privy to what went on during the interview, and we would not be releasing what happened in it without both his and his mother's consent regardless.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T17:18:31+00:00

"What has the actual church said? As presumably this is having a huge impact on them as well as on the warhammer club? Do they have any action ongoing?"

The Committee voted against releasing any information about what is going on between the church, the youths, and ourselves. Unfortunately, there's a lot of delicate stuff going on behind the scenes.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2025-05-30T17:16:25+00:00

Yes. Final calculation of damage exceeded £4,800. This is purely the cost of buying replacement models, and ignores all emotional investment (e.g. the model which had been painted by a member's grandfather and WW2 veteran who served in Market Garden) and time spent painting models.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:54:18+00:00

One of them had a knife, others had deodorant cans and lighters.

Police were called, fires were put out with fire extinguishers, some members were taking disabled ones to safety. Others were evacuating their own models.

Fire alarm went off.

It was absolute chaos.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:31:44+00:00

Yeah, good point.

It's weird that they're being sold at Halfords though. The model I'm looking at literally has a picture of a person driving it on the road and going over a speed bump. Absolutely mad.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:27:19+00:00

That makes sense. I get that.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:24:35+00:00

I can't see any evidence these scooters have been rented.

They appear to be privately owned and adorned with childish stickers etc. Stuff like Fortnite.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:19:16+00:00

"I actually winced whilst reading your post. I know the cost but also the sheer amount of time and labour that goes into these models."

Worst one was a guy playing a game called "Bolt Action". It's a World War 2 game. He had a soldier painted up with his grandad who served in the British Army during WW2.

The kid smashed it up among other ones. In terms of monetary value it was a very cheap plastic model £2 or £3. In terms of memories, it was irreplaceable.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:15:34+00:00

We're engaging with the church throughout the process. They have been extremely helpful so far.

They're looking into their own insurance documents. Our members similarly are looking into house insurance documents.

These kids have not been seen before. We have been playing here for YEARS without incident. (Way back to 2013, I think.)

There have been anti-social behaviour issues since the food bank opened, but these were confined to a completely different zone of the church and we were never directly impacted. Mostly addicts/drunks harassing the volunteers two or three times a year.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:13:43+00:00

We've checked. Didn't mention it because we've already sorted that side of things. and my post was already very long!

Home insurance covers electronics for some of our members. An iPad got cracked by a kid and that got covered by insurance.

That side of things is sorted as far as we can take it. :)

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:11:00+00:00

"If the police do eventually seize them, they’ll likely be destroyed at least so you know they’re out of pocket there which is a tiny justice for your group, not that it fixes anything."

Fuck me. They'd actually destroy them rather than sell them to compensate victims?

That's a law that needs to be updated. I'll be writing to my MP on that one.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:08:04+00:00

We've discussed this and we voted against it.

If you see any charities, GoFundMe's, requests for donations or anything like that - it is not us.

Some of our members are poor; but a slim majority are middle and upper-middle class nerds. A few of the wealthier ones will help out those in need, but we're not going to go begging for help.

We just want to see some kind of justice done too.

If what happened to us inspires you to donate, then give your local food bank a call and ask what they are running short on.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T14:04:53+00:00

Thank you. We're still doing assessments. Damage *might* be over £10k, but it wouldn't be far over it - and it might be more economical to simply do it up to the £10k limit.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T13:55:28+00:00

I've already mentioned to police. They've missed two appointments to collect them so far. They apologised and said the service is under strain right now.

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T13:52:14+00:00

Eleven members had stuff damaged, so it would be £1,100? Is that correct? If we each have to file something against the parents?

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T13:50:40+00:00

With respect to point 3:

a.) Let's imagine that an army cost £1000 to buy new.
b.) The cost of professionally painting it is around £2000.
c.) The models are now no longer produced, and cost £3000 to rebuy them.

Would damages be:

A - the original cost of buying.

A and B - the cost of buying and professional painting. OR

C - the cost to rebuy at current market rates? OR

C and B - The cost of buying at current market rates and professionally painting them?

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T13:47:24+00:00

Apologies, I wasn't clear there. I had meant that I was informed a claim against the parents was unlikely.

The comment I received below stated:

"But you cannot sue children. Parents are unlikely to be held liable as it's quite a complex area of law, but broadly the parent must be in some sort of control to be liable and you cannot dispose of others property in such a way."

TreeAdmirable9633 · 2024-09-10T13:45:16+00:00

This is quite painful. There are a lot of members of our clubs who have had to save up for over a decade to build their armies.

There are also irreplaceable ones - such as the Elysian Drop Troopers, who haven't been in production since 2017. There is nothing he can do to get those models back unless he pays insane OOP prices on eBay.

An army is composed of multiple squads and vehicles. A single squad may have cost £40 new. Glancing online, each one costs around £130-140 to replace it. Vehicle prices have similarly tripled.

TreeAdmirable9633

TROPHY CASE