Southport Inquiry report highlights failures and misunderstanding of autism

[ProudAmberTurtle]

The Phase 1 report from the Southport Inquiry is out has found the attack "could and should have been prevented".

It was "highly likely" it wouldn't have happened if agencies and the killer's own parents had actually done their jobs over the years. Catastrophic failures everywhere - police, mental health services, social services, schools - all passing the buck, losing information and refusing to take ownership of the risk this boy posed.

But the bit that really jumped out at me is this: a "misunderstanding of autism" meant his violent, dangerous behaviour was wrongly blamed on his autism spectrum disorder.

Instead of treating the clear warning signs of murderous intent as the serious red flags they were, everyone just shrugged and said "it's his autism" and did nothing. No proper risk assessment, no real intervention, no one stepping up.

Neurodiversity / mental health services were so terrified of "stigmatising" or "criminalising" autism that they ended up enabling actual danger to everyone else.

The parents also apparently let weapons be delivered to the house and didn't report crucial things in the days before.

This my experience too, weight loss due to restriction, anxiety, self harm, agraphobia, unable to access education or health care- according it CAHMS it’s all just autism and they won’t offer any support.

No wonder autistic people have such dire health outcomes. Autistic adults without a learning disability have a life expectancy 12 years less than the general population. For those who also have a learning disability their life expectancy is further reduced.

I don't believe any amount of support could have stopped what happened. I think dangerous behaviour and actions have been allowed to fester in the UK, small acts of criminality build.

There are no real consequences anymore for horrific behaviour. Shame and judgement need to make a big comeback.

Autism didn't cause that man to plunge a knife in to those screaming little girls.

Neurodiversity / mental health services were so terrified of "stigmatising" or "criminalising" autism that they ended up enabling actual danger to everyone else.

It’s nothing to do with being afraid of stigmatising people OP.
Mental health services just don’t treat people with autism if they can help it. They say they’re not qualified and refer back to autism services (who aren’t qualified to treat MH conditions). People are sent around in circles.

Well where I am there are no ND services for children, there is just a new one for adults but the waiting list is over a year for support, and staffed by mainly people with autism so Im unsure what that means for service users

However, in addition CAMHS and tier 4 MH services and adult MH teams will say that most interventions or strategies are counter productive for ND children, such as restraint, hospitalisation, criminalisation so their general advice is away from that. There are entire services set up to prevent children with ND being hospitalised/placed in custody no matter if the vast majority of the network feel that sectioning is necessary or equivalent

There are entire services set up to prevent children with ND being hospitalised/placed in custody no matter if the vast majority of the network feel that sectioning is necessary or equivalent

What services are they?

They're usually a jointly run social services and health provision, who again provide 'consultation', Ive had a mixture of success, some really do have support for carers but sometimes they wont even accept referrals as the criteria can be argued.

And their entire raison d’etre is to prevent ND people being hospitalised etc even if they need to be? I find that hard to believe.

Sad to read that others have had the same experiences as me of services like CAMHS for their autistic DC. My extremely anxious DC who barely leaves the house has been assessed and rejected multiple times from CAMHS with the excuse always being "it's because of her autism". She was referred to an autism outreach service (with no explanation of what they do) only to sit on that waiting list for almost a year now. She developed severe restricted eating - not related to food sensitivities which she has no history of - but was rejected from CAMHS eating disorder service because they decided her eating difficulties were "because of her autism" even though they could offer no explanation of how they reached this conclusion. So they re-referred her back to the mental health side of CAMHS who still said they couldn't offer her any support. They also tried to bump her to the community dietitian but the referral took so long that by the time they contacted me I had managed to get her to a safer weight myself using information and support from online so they wouldn't accept her either.

My DD also has selective mutism - SALT won't help because they say it's an anxiety-based condition. CAMHS won't help because they say it's a speech and language difficulty.
Its very short-sighted in the long term as her anxiety and selective mutism have now become so debilitating that I don't see how she will ever be able to get a job. If we had been able to access early, effective support maybe things wouldn't have come to this.

Who says they 'need' to be?

Thats the point, you can get carers, school, SWs, parents, IRO all saying that they believe a hospital admission is necessary (needed), but of course they are not clincial staff. Unless its agreed by the psychiatrist to complete a MHA assessment AND from there that there is a detainable MH disorder that needs and can be treated, then that child wont be detained (not needed)

Guess who has a lot of sway in that, the service will work hand in glove to guide/support/advise/steer the planning away from MHA assessment. And I dont disagree that quite often detainment or custody is extremely traumatic for young people but at times many of us feel there isnt an alternative. Unless you sit in these meetings day in and day out with multi agencies you dont see the towing and frowing about one minute this is proposed, next minute this isnt proposed etc etc

Ive had AMHPs tell me they wont go out and assess at x time because theres no current beds anyway and therefore if they end up saying the person needs to be detained theres no where for them to go so its not effective as an assessment. This was a few years ago now and was a late teen with a knife, disordered thinking, disorganised speech, manic symptoms, disassociated. Thank god nothing happened.

Oh yes we get this a lot, no OT or SALT intervention because its ND and/or MH. CAMHS have simply referred to say OT and SALT need to support!!!

This is my experience too.

There is little support if professionals feel the issue is because of the ASD/ADHD.

Ive had AMHPs tell me they wont go out and assess at x time because theres no current beds anyway and therefore if they end up saying the person needs to be detained theres no where for them to go so its not effective as an assessment

OK, that I believe. You had made it sound that this was all being done for the benefit of the ND person, but a lot of it seems like it’s down to lack of the proper supports as per usual.

It’s the same with adult MH services. DS was refused treatment. The reason given was the fact he was autistic.

That girl wasnt ND, it was just an example that popped into my head of being denied a service while I was writing

Yes, it is presented as to the benefit of the child with ND, Ive been told (for various kids) that although there 'might' be a MH condition (because the other issue is that pinnning CAMHS down to say 'what on earth is your diagnosis here', you get a load of wooly nonsense, word salad, usually 'trauma' which of course is not a MH condition), but even if there 'might' be a MH condition, a hospital stay will do more harm than good, so no can do. Research indicates that people/children with ND are harmed by hospitalisation so a lot of work goes into avoiding and preventing that. Sometimes rightly

And all services work to prevent custody for young people, children are not criminalised.

All I know if my child can’t get MH services he desperately needs ‘because he’s autistic’. That’s a quote from the services.

All I know is…typo, sorry.

Aah yes I didnt notice the link I got it now.
Seeing a YP express no remorse is extremely unnerving.
That is an interesting discussion. Suggests the practitioner should not have introduced the idea of race also, in hindsight, accepted the schools vocabulary or explored it. The report writer also points out these are extreme terms to use-

You want a very experienced person to a) note a head is using extreme terms, b) get exactly the right response to that given the complex dynamic c) extract from the head the fact that there is a lot of missing information especially when Educations internal systems hadn't worked d) persuade everyone that the precise risk info is what should be in the EHC, e) collate the precise information f) supply it. G) maintain a therapeutic relationship with the child and family. ( Which is a big part of the CAMHs job, they can't function otherwise) ).
Is there an analysis of the supervision in place which would enable the CAMHs worker to get all that right? Would the author have got it all right on the spot? What pay grade does that level of ability relate to?.
I agree with the authors point- - the fear of being accused of stereotyping by giving factual information about knife incidents isn't rational. The head- big difference in power and salary there with the CAMHs worker- should have been able to maintain her position and given precise information. . Doesn't read like she was being accused of anything- merely asked - wisely or unwisely- to consider a perspective. Can't be the first time race ever came up and won't be the last. Heads of schools should be equipped to deal with that type of dialogue because it's a reality. But if in doubt they are in a position to take legal advice.
I believe one of the contributory factors here was the parents worry he would not be offered a school.place, and professionals are aware of that possibility. I'd have magine this risk/eligibility dialogue is mirrored in different forms across the country. However insignificant in this case ( because he didn't attend) This case will impact availability of places in that more kids who would be ok and would attend will be denied places and it's because of a lack of special schools.
The wider issues have a place in creating conditions for micro interactions and vice versa.

The schools were useless! They generally said the boy “liked” her and didn’t know what to do with it! She was a very popular, pretty and vivacious girl - like the sunshine in the room! She was always in SLCN provision, where the criteria was no behaviour problems, so the schools didn’t have the expertise to deal with them imo.

Often the school said they’d talk to the boy, which was like water off a duck’s back. My solicitor attempted judicial review against the LA for failing to keep her safe.

Eventually, in her teens, DD1 complained to her social worker that the boy had punched her. (He lived in our Local Authority). The social worker wrote to the school and told them to hold a meeting with us, sort it out and send her the minutes of the meeting. A LA ed psy also told me, he had been recently been diagnosed with ASD, and we’d see a sea change in the school’s attitude. It was sorted after that.

Bloody hell thats an awful response from the school. It sounds more like the school normalised his behaviour by refusing to deal with it so he knew he could carry on.

I had to remove my kids from a school like this. Some kids just seem to have a license to do what they want to others and get away with it. The behaviour was beyond atrocious across the school and the head teacher wasn't interested.

The boy shouldnt have needed a ASD diagnosis for the school to be dealing with unacceptable behaviour on there property.

Not at all surprising is it?

I walked out of work yday as a TA in a secondary school after being nearly headbutted three times in one day by one 15 year old boy….. it’s his autism innit?

I walked out. I’m never returning. Didn’t even hand my notice in.

Same old shit in this country.