What would you have done?

Possibly the boy will tell his parents and they might take it up with the school.
It's a horrible situation.

I know that Day6 and I was even prepared to help the dad save face ! can you believe it? I was preparing to say something like "Oh dear, they all look the same don't they?" just to make him feel better.

Horrible man. DS thinks I should leave it as he says they are a bit of a nasty family. But I feel so bad for the young lad, who's cap it obviously was.

Yes Imperfect is right that sort of behaviour from an adult is not appropriate anywhere but particularly outside school.

Yes, you were brave! This has really perturbed me. On the face of it, not much can be done, but as someone was verbally abusive on the school playground, I would suggest you report it to the school office. School may be able to make a pastoral response to the affected child / attempt mediation with the other child and also send a message to parents / carers to remind them of appropriate / expected behaviour at the school gate.

Oh aren't parents like that aggressive man just awful? What sort of example is he setting his son?

It would have been so much easier to check for initials and then hand it over, saying sorry they'd picked up the wrong one or something. He was OK with theft I imagine, otherwise he wouldn't have put the cap in his pocket.

Well done Gillybob for trying to get him to do the right thing. That poor little boy having to face such a nasty adult.

I probably would mention the altercation to the school office staff, only because you were caught up in it. Sometimes school gate happenings can escalate. (Not that I think this one will, but a factual record of what happened wouldn't go amiss.)

I know Rigby he was lovely and very polite and I feel like I have let him down by not doing more. I mentioned it to DDiL this morning and when I described the dad she said "Blimey you were brave to even stand beside him"

Oh dear - you tried but aggression is hard to deal with isn't it? Could you get in touch with the school and see if they will follow it up? That poor little boy, he sounded so polite and brave and now he'll be so upset.