to be fed up of people using Aspergers as an excuse

[SomeGuy]

Just reading DM (yes, IABU, I know), story about some bloke who got into a facebook tiff and sued for libel:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298010/Facebook-libel-Law-student-dubbed-paedophile-wins-10-000-li bel-damages.html

'Jeremiah Barber posted an indecent image of children on Raymond Bryce's page on the social networking website along with the comment: 'Ray, you like kids and you are gay so I bet you love this picture, Ha ha'.

The image, which hundreds of users could see, showed Mr Bryce superimposed on to a collage of pornographic pictures.

It was 'tagged' with Mr Bryce's name, allowing his 800 friends on the site to see it.

His victim, who is now a law student, pursued the civil claim against his former school friend and was awarded £10,000 at the High Court yesterday for the stress and anxiety the incident caused him.'

'Mr Bryce, 24, who lives with his parents in Stone, Staffordshire, suffers from high functioning Asperger's Syndrome, but has secured a place on a full time degree course studying law at Stafford University.'

So in other words he's intelligent and successful and has lots of friends. So why should we care that he 'suffers' from Aspergers? It doesn't make the libel any worse, or make him more of a victim.

Here's another story, from Friday:

www.thisiskent.co.uk/tunbridgewells/Asperger-sufferer-admits-cash-card-theft-friend/article-2442184- detail/article.html

'Sevenoaks Magistrates' Court heard on Friday how 22-year-old Michael Funnell, of Addison Road, invited a group of friends around to his house for a party on March 6.

He took their coats to hang them up and when Steve Goodwin's back was turned, took his bank card, before withdrawing £120 from a cash point.

He had memorised his friend's PIN when with him a couple of days before.

Brian Ferris, defending, said: "I am told my client has Asperger's syndrome. He can offer no explanation as to why he steals in this way."'

You wouldn't get them saying 'I am told thay my client doesn't have a very good job, because he is not very bright.'

Another story from today:

www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/news/Spared-prison-camera-showers/article-2442265-detail/article.html

' A MINISTRY of Defence manager who set up covert cameras to watch naked men in the showers has been spared jail.

Hensman, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, was working as network manager in communications and systems at the MoD police HQ in Wethersfield when he was accused of voyeurism.

Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC told him: "You were originally prosecuted for sexual offences [voyeurism] but because of your psychiatric makeup these charges were dropped.

"In February 2006 you set up some sort of video recording equipment which recorded movements of people coming in and out of the showers, involving some images of naked males' private parts.

"You were doing it because of your psychiatric condition."

Asperger's is an autism disorder characterised by social interaction problems.

Judge Goldstaub said that people have to "accommodate" others with psychiatric disorders and be "tolerant", adding "it's not their fault".'

It seems to be a popular plea for people accused of child pornography offences:

www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/2031606.indecent_images_man_avoids_jail/

'A BARMAN who was caught with more than 900 indecent images of children has been spared jail.

Southwark Crown Court heard because Jonathan Bristow had Asperger's syndrome he could act on impulse and become obsessive about collecting things.'

Sorry, that post above doesn't make sense because I forgot to delete the first sentence from my original post. It should read thus:

Okay, I did not say that it is necessarily the parents job - in my original post, I said

*"If these people are not stopped (by a carer, I suppose, in a prevention sense) or put out of society, then what? Do we have to be willing to be stolen from, or filmed getting changed, or branded paedophiles, etc, because its "not their fault" (which it may not be), or is it someone's responsibility to stop it happening?

I dont object to it being not their fault, or using it "as an excuse" - it may well excuse them from the behaviour. But who's responsibility are they? Because if they can't be responsible for themselves, someone should. That's all. No, I'm not saying they should be locked away in institutions like the good old days, but to have this grey area of nobody being responsible and people having to have crimes committed against them is not really acceptable either, or is it?"*

So - once again - if its not their fault, then someone should be responsible. If this can be the parents or next of kin (as in my elderly aunt's case) then fine, problem solved. If they can't be responsible, then the government should step in. But SOMEONE has to be responsible.

If I had come out straight away and said the government should be responsible, I would have been flamed for implying they should all be locked up. This is not what I think at all.

To say "society" is at fault is so vague and ridiculous, because society can't do anything if the government wont.

If nobody takes responsibility, nothing will change.

Of course I think society should care for its more vulnerable members. Where did I say they should not? Caring for them and accepting being a victim of crime at their hands are two different things. Talk about putting words in my mouth.

I think vulnerable people should be cared for. But allowing crimes to be committed with no consequences due to the condition is not caring for them, nor is it caring for society. Its just not caring at all.

But the man in the filming case did NOT 'get away with it'.
jail.
He "was made the subject of a three-year community order with a condition that he is supervised, after pleading guilty to a charge of outraging public decency at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday."
The man was previously charged with voyeurism, but as I understand it, for that charge to stick the prosecution would have to prove that the filming was done for sexual gratification, and it seems clear that this was not the case, and it was part of some kind of non-sexual obsession, which is precisely why his Aspergers was relevant. It did not mean he was found not guilty, I expect he lost his job, probably understandably, and I imagine his life is in ruins now, which should make the OP very happy.
Obsessions and compulsions of various kinds are a huge part of Aspergers. But as we can see it does not mean that people who act on those compulsions 'get away with it'. They get prosecuted and found guilty and sentenced. And sometimes people think that just because they have Aspergers they are bad people even when they are clearly the victims of crime, not the purpetrator. Of coruse it is easier just to go, 'ooh look at all these bad freaks!' rather than think.

Bravo Small White Cat! Trawling obscure local paper website for ancient minor offences so as to build a case against autistics as a group? Now, that's what I call an obsessive disorder!

aargh, so frustrating - the crosser I am, the worse my typing! 'perpetrator'.

Hmm, everyone agreed with me last night, bit of a change of tone today.

Anyway, I was not 'building a case against autistics as a group', I was suggesting that people were using Aspergers unreasonably as an excuse in legal cases.

The first man cited is a trainee lawyer practising his craft and he gets his mum to milk his condition for sympathy 'He was easy to ridicule and bully, being autistic, he's had it all his life.'

It's irrelevant, she could just as well have said 'My son has always had lots of friends and been very popular, so this was very damaging to him', or 'My son has always been an ugly boy and got bullied and ridiculed as a result'.

My son has Aspergers and I understand that that he has inappropriate behaviours, but it doesn't excuse him from the rules/laws, which in fact to him are more concrete/absolute than to other people.

I have tendencies in that direction myself, and it has caused me some social difficulties but never once have I thought 'it is ok for me to collect and catalogue child porn'; otoh I have wasted spent a fair bit of money collecting old money, but then I'm quite happy that I'm 'doing no harm' by doing so.

Op
everyone may have agreeed with you last night. i am not sure what that means - I would have disagreed with you last night had I been on MN. As it was i could only notice the nonsense in your post this morning.

I agreed last night. But i think after reading this morning, thought i was agreeing to something else, unless it has moved on massivley?

I was agreeing to the idea that non suferers could use mental illness as a get out of jail free card, not actual sufferers, and the argument that yes the protection needs to be there for people with problems but that it lets through others with genuine criminal intent. I thought this was more a 'dealing with SN within the justice system' debate rather than just a 'SN' debate.

Maybe I read it wrong then

Sorry to cause offence

I disagreed last night...

But nobody has said it is ever ok to collecgt child porn. Even the man himself admitted it was wrong. And he was charged and convicted. It is his counsel's job to explain and as far as possible to offer mitigation for his crimes. It happens every single time! If he was of low intelligence, say, or had been abused, then that would be mentions. The fact that it is not exclusive to Aspergers is proven by the fact that you had to trawl obscure newspaper websites for ancient crimes. An in the filming case, then I have already explained why his condition was relevant to the specific charges laid against him. Each case is different.
And as for the first example - and I have no idea why you find that so wrong given that the person with Aspergers is the entirely innocent party - Mr Bryce's mother was perfectly entitled to give evidence about the malicious background to the libel and why her son was picked on in this way, and to speak about the suffering it caused the family.

I saw you silverfrog

Exactly CCF
every person is entitled to explain any mitigating circumstances, whatever they are.

And Mr Bryces mother is entitled to speak and reference his aspergers without it being described as 'milking the condition' - a very unpleasant description especially given that Mr Bryce has done nothing wrong.

Her son was picked on because the other man is a twat and probably thought it was funny, and because he didn't want to repay his debt.

The child porn man paid to download child porn. He knew that was wrong, he knew that paying child pornographers incites child abuse, but he did it anyway. He had a choice NOT to pay to download abuse images.

We all have free will, but the extent to which we do things that are wrong is determined to a large extent by aspects our personalities that we might not be able to control, our upbgringing and our environment.

That said, a rapist would not have the judge saying 'undoubtedly you have a very high sex drive, which clearly played a part in your commission of these offences', even though such a statement might be true - excepting the genuinely insane, people are judged on the basis that they have choices in life.

OP, you might feel 'well I am a bit aspergery and it doesn't affect me' but none of these cases are about you! And it is absolutely true both that autism does affect behaviour and that many people with autism are more vulnerable to bullying and to being conned. You seem to miss the point that Mr Bryce doesn't need an 'excuse' because...sigh...he didn't do anything wrong!

someguy, have you read the thread at all?

I, and other posters, have outlined fairly comprehensively that we do not "all have free will"

you clearly have not ever come across true autistic compulsion.

dd1 does not do even half the stuff she does becasue she wants to. a lot of the time it makes her miserable. but she does it regardless, because she is compelled to. like shouting whenever someone writes a list. or having to touch every wheelie bin when we walk down certain streets (even if they are tucked away down the side of the house) - she has no interest in wheelie bins, and only does in in a few streets. no idea why. she cannot not do it.

a couple of years ago we lived in a town where the manholes in the high street all had the same wording on. she had to touch the "E" on the manhole if we crossed the road. seriously. dragging her away didn'thelp, she would return. cars/lorries/bicycles didn't matter, she had to touch it. I have never been so thankful to move away form somewhere.

please try to understand, sometimes people really, truly cannot help the things they do. you are judging them by your standards - you, with full understanding and free will and a choice to exercise that free will. they are possibly not even in the same ocean as you, let alone the same boat.

That's just not true, though. Mitigation (to reduce a sentence) is always offered in criminal cases. Not just 'genuine cases of insanity' but stuff like low intelligence, a difficult background or personal life, post-natal depression, even genuine remorse and previous good character. You seem completely astonished by this. And in the case of the guy who was filming the shower area, it was to explain WHY he was filming, not to deny that he was, or to say it was OK. He couldn't be charged with voyeurism because his compulsion to film was not driven by a desire for sexual gratification, as was explained to, and accepted by, the court. Didn't mean he 'got away with it' by any means.

Sorry, when I said, 'that's not true' I was addressing the OP, and his statement that in court: "excepting the genuinely insane, people are judged on the basis that they have choices in life." It's just not that simple in life or in law.
I still utterly refute the idea that autistic people are somehow this vast criminal gang who are all 'getting away with it' (even when they didn't actually do anything)

The courts are clearly accepting it in mitigation from the quoted statements.

People do not secretly film naked men or women for any other reason than sexual gratification. It's totally unreasonable to say 'I was compelled by my autism to setup hidden cameras and film people'. Any pervert could say the same, and indeed it's rather likely that many men facing these charges do have Asperger's.

So if it is accepted in mitigation by the court and I assume medical experts, you still think you know better?

Someguy, it is interesting that you know so much more about this particular case and the man's motives than the judge who was actually there. And from such a sketchy report, too. Remarkable, in fact.

People don't paint naked men and women for any other reasons either. Loads of artists are famous perverts.....

SomeGuy - I have got to say if your kid really does have Aspergers I feel truly sorry for him after the appalling attitude you have displayed on here.