Don't let your kids drive the cart

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably been there. You’ve taken the kids to the golf course, and they’ve pestered you into getting a buggy. And as soon as you’re way from the clubhouse, they’ll be asking you if they can drive. And they keep going on until you relent and let them. And most likely all is fine and dandy. But just sometimes things don’t go to plan...

On Bald Head Island, just off the coast of North Carolina, there are no cars, just golf buggies. Imagine just for a second how peaceful that must make the place feel; even the police zip about the island in golf carts.

The Mall family had been to the beach to catch the sunset, and their 11-year-old son had asked to drive them back to the holiday cottage they had been renting. A 30 second ride at most. Bad move.

By law you need to be at least 16 and have a valid driving licence to drive a golf cart on Bald Head. Julie Mall accepts she was wrong letting him drive. But how did that lead to her being frog marched off the island, put in leg chains and charged with child abuse?!

A police cart stuck its lights on and made them pull over. “Immediately he started berating us,” Mall said. “He was saying ‘How old is this kid?’ ‘Are you guys drunk?’ ‘I could write you up for child abuse." Mall claims she had no more than a glass of wine, and nobody was drunk.

With her son bursting into tears, she asked her 22-year-old niece to take her kids home. When they left she got angry with the police. “I said, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ and I stuck my finger in his face.”

She asked her husband to get some mosquito repellent, leaving her alone with four officers. Mall says at this point she was standing to the side of the path when the arresting officer came over and said she was blocking traffic, and needed to return to her golf cart, a cart that wasn't there anymore. The only things blocking the path were the police vehicles according to Mall. 

“He said, ‘You need to go back to your golf cart or I’m going to cuff you,’ ” she said. “He lunged across at me, twisting my arm behind my back. I’m hysterical. I’ve never been that scared of anything in my life.”

As her husband came back he saw her being taken to the ground by the arresting officer, James hunter. Scott Mall got his phone out and started filming.“As soon as I came up there, I saw him start coming toward her. My reaction was to film it so we’d have some proof because I knew this wasn’t an up-and-up situation. It became a frightening situation. It escalated out of control.”

Now remember this is an island. The next thing she knew, after a brief stop at the public safety office, she was being driven to the ferry. She was then driven 20 miles to a detention centre where she was charged with resisting a public officer, intoxication and disruptive and misdemeanour child abuse.

After a night in jail, which involved being attached to the jailer by a leg chain _ something that in itself seems extreme – the story didn’t end there. When the case came up in court Mall travelled the 200 miles from her home to the court. Officer Hunter didn’t turn up. The case was delayed another two months. The officer failed to turn up again, with a claim that he was expecting a phone call to come testify. Without the witness the case got chucked out. 

The charges in theory could be reinstated. “I’m not a menace to society,” she says. “I’m not a child abuser.”

So listen kids, next time you ask to drive a golf buggy, especially if you’re in America, and you get told not to, that's because mummy and daddy don’t want to go to jail. Which is fair enough, really. And just to add to this cautionary tale, we also suggest not to drive golf carts into fire hydrants. Because this happens…

For more on the story, and the arrest video check out the piece by the Charlotte Observer here...