DD17 has been inappropriately touched by a customer whilst at work.

[Normansglasseye]

DD17 works at the weekend at a well known store.

We are currently on our way to pick her up as she's just rung me very distressed. She was serving on a till and an autistic young man around the same as DD has grabbed one of her breasts. She is absolutely distraught. The carer/parent has apologised.

I've never been in a situation like this.

I'm so upset for DD.

Your poor daughter, I hope her work are being supportive?

That's awful, Op. What is her employer doing to ensure that DD is safe at work going forwards?

Your DD has been assaulted. It's totally up to her whether she wishes to report it to the police. But for now I would just be supporting and looking after her.

We are nearly there.

I'm fuming. The assistant manager is fully aware, this happened half hour ago and no one has come up to the staff room to see if she is ok.

They don't seem concerned at all

That makes it even worse.

She needs to write down what happened and also how appalling her employers have been
she has been assaulted at work - there should be procedures in place
I hope she’s ok - that’s very upsetting

Thank you everyone.

We are just about to go into the store.

Don't forget If it was at the till they will have cctv too

I hope your daughter is ok.
Please get her to write out her account of this assault and send to HR plus how she wasn't supported by the manager of the store.

A long time ago I worked at Argos, putting things in a glass cabinet a man came over and put his hand up my skirt. I kicked him and shouted at him to fuck off.
Fortunately my manager was nearby and confronted this waste of space.
Manager wanted to call the police but I stupidly said leave it.
A few weeks later this waste of space wrote to head office that I was a foul mouth bitch. He actually wrote that in his complaint.
Thank goodness the manager saw what happened.
The CEO made it a police matter.
It turned out he had a list of sexual assaults to shop assistants.
It ended up going to court.

They've been through the cctv and luckily it's caught on there so is available if DD wanted to go to the police about it all.

She should go to the police and I say this as the parent of an autistic and disabled teenaged boy who could possibly end up in a situation like this. The person who assaulted her should not be in a situation where this can happen. He needs more support/ boundaries.

We have sat with the assistant manager and dd has filled out an incident form to send to their head office.

DD had been serving a couple at the same time as the incident occurring, thankfully the man grabbed the young man's arm to prevent him assaulting dd any further and I am so grateful to him.
The parent/carer came over straight away and apologised saying she was sorry and mortified. She said the lad had an obsession over name tags and he was probably trying to grab that. DD doesn't even wear a name tag and she is upset as there were 5 lads on all the other tills but this young man chose her.

Sadly, dd was in such a state and felt so embarrassed that she went straight up to the staff room for a cry and didn't inform her managers straight away so the young guy and his mum/carer and the couple dd was serving all left without giving any kind of statements etc.

I am sorry that happened to you btw. Dd has been in this job since last year and it's the first time someone has actually physically touched her but she has had so many men say inappropriate things to her, it's dreadful who many sick people are out there.

This is the thing, if he has form for this and the fact the person with him said he has a thing for name tags, then he needed more than one responsible adult with him whilst in public, apparently he left the carer/mum whilst she was in the queue.

I do have full empathy for her though, I am a PA for disabled and autistic people.

I have told dd if she wants to contact the police then we are fully supportive of her.

He absolutely should have had more supervision.

i work in health care and a mum and married twice and I can very very vividly recall the old man who grabbed my nipple in 2018 while wearing a shirt full scrubs and a lab coat. I’m quite certain he did this often and was quite sneaky in waiting for the opportunity feigning needing assistance to get up and using that moment to grab. I’m sorry this has happened to your daughter and I’m happy she has the support of you and the employer.

Tbh she should be quitting on the spot if that's the case - she's young enough to not need to include them on her CV.

I hope you encourage her to never go back and to get the police involved who will actually help her x

If it's someone with severe autism/learning disability there is unlikely to be anything done from the shop other than to report it - this is something that does happen fairly regularly & if the person has a severe disability it won't be taken seriously by police either.

She does have the right to report to police regardless of whether the employer agrees. Her rights as a victim of a crime always come above what the employer wants.

It really depends on the specifics of what happened & whether the autistic person has capacity to do it deliberately.

I've had it happen to me & have an autistic adult son with LD too so can see both sides.

I think you need to take your DDs lead on this, obviously you have a role to support her as her mum but this was her workplace and she is the employee, not you. I think this is one of those situations where the parent needs to quietly support from the sidelines not control the situation. I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong OP, I obviously don't know you I'm just saying sometimes these things become all about the parents wants and not about what actually happened.

Agree that it is for the best for her to report to Police.

Although I doubt anything will happen legally due to the individual having a carer with them, it could bring about changes to their support so that this can never happen again.

I do hope DD is doing ok and considering complaining about her employer, also.

Autism or not her rights were violated. Get the police involved.

Your poor daughter. At 17 you have to be led by your DD but I’d be inclined to encourage her to get the police involved. If nothing else it’ll focus the store managers mind on the need to ensure staff are properly safeguarded and treated.

It's totally the dd's decision about whether to go to the police or not

The police will be slow though, so be prepared to wait for them. My 9 year old was sexually assaulted a month ago and we are still waiting for her official (ABE) statement to be taken. Be prepared to help your daughter chase for responses - we have used the complaint form on the force website, emailed the commissioner and our MP to speed things up. But please don’t let it go when they tell you it’s complicated. He won’t get the additional support required to make everyone safe unless these incidents are ‘official’.

Report to police. The apologism on the part of the carer needs to be challenged.