Mom tries to protect non-verbal son from alleged school abuse. But in a shocking twist, she gets arrested by police instead

Seeing a child come home with sudden bruises on their body will put any parent on high alert. That was the predicament one mother found herself in, which led her to initiate her own investigation after believing her son was being abused at school. However, her attempt to find the alleged perpetrator ended with the mother being arrested instead.

Skye Cooper’s seven-year-old son, who has epilepsy, autism, severe language delay, global developmental delay, and is non-verbal, started attending Churchill Primary School in Victoria, Australia, in February 2025. Everything seemed to be going well until a month later, when Cooper noticed her son began behaving unusually, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

According to Cooper, her son would resist leaving the car whenever she dropped him off at school, to the point that he would beg for his mother and scream loudly. When she tried to leave her son, he would become more “emotionally distressed” and “traumatized” as he refused to be left alone with anyone other than Cooper.

Cooper tries to catch the alleged perpetrator of the abuse

It wasn’t until Cooper’s son returned home one day with what the mother believed to be bruises on his body that she realized the issue was more severe than she thought. Worried for her son, Cooper said she organized a meeting with school staff multiple times to share her concerns. However, she claimed the school failed to really address the issue.

Taking matters into her own hands, Cooper supposedly sought advice from a disability advocate, who told her to sew a recording device inside her son’s clothing. She allegedly sent her son to school with the device hidden, and at night, she would listen to the audio recordings to catch the perpetrator.

One night, however, Cooper claimed that she heard a classroom aide threatening her son in the recording. “You hurt me, I’ll hurt you,” the aide allegedly told the young boy. When she heard what seemed like a threat, Cooper reportedly pulled her son out of school.

“Once I heard her on the recording threatening him, saying that she’ll hurt him […] I ended up pulling him out [of the school],” Cooper told the outlet. Her concern for her child’s well-being is understandable, as this isn’t the first case of a child allegedly being abused by those trusted to educate them.

Cooper gets arrested for allegedly recording a private conversation

While Cooper’s actions seemingly stemmed from a mother’s genuine concern for her child, Australian law says otherwise. Cooper’s covert actions reportedly got the mother arrested after she was reported to police for allegedly using a recording device without the other party’s consent.

Under the Surveillance Devices Act 1999 in Victoria, individuals are prohibited from using, installing, or maintaining a listening device to record or listen to a private conversation unless given consent by the party involved or the individual is a participant in the conversation. Those found guilty of breaking this law can be sentenced to two years in prison, receive 240 penalty units, or both.

Cooper was charged with Regulation of Installation, Use and Maintenance of a Listening Device, which left the mother shocked. “I was trying to protect my child. I just couldn’t make sense of it, that […] the tables have been turned on me,” Cooper said.

Police reportedly offered Cooper a way to prevent the incident from becoming a criminal record by having her make a $300 AUD (around $213) donation to charity and admitting to the charges. For now, Cooper said she is seeking legal advice on her next course of action while petitioning for the aide’s removal at school, who she said formally apologized and was “extremely remorseful,” but had claimed they didn’t “recall the exchange” with her son.

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