Man stalking woman, excused by saying he must be autistic..

[AutismIsStigmatised]

I came across this video on TikTok today, I'll post the link below but in summary an unknown man posed as an amazon delivery person to get access to a block of flats this woman lives in. He was behaving strangely and wanted to give her a 'gift' which was some sort of cup / candle holder. She confronted him and he left, then came back up again, left again then came back up a third time with his hood up as though he was about to do something sinister. Very bloody creepy.

vm.tiktok.com/ZMNsQfG2W/

The comments are littered with people saying that he's 'clearly autistic'

Take a look and tell me what you think but as the parent of an autistic boy (and wife of an autistic adult) it really upsets me when people assume scary/criminal behaviour is due to autism. I know many people with autism and not one has ever behaved like that..

But more to the point, it's not a feminist issue, at least not in my eyes. Women are vulnerable members of society because (mostly neurotypical) men and so are severely disabled people.

and btw, for all we know some of these men who have a thing for breasts may grab hold of them tight and it would cause extreme pain/be impossible to move away from them if you don’t want your breast tissue torn.

if they are beyond understand verbal and social communication ( or even if not) the best course of action for me to quickly end this is to issue a short sharp shock.
For eg. many years ago a man tried to assault me after a party (tried to forcibly kiss me out the blue) and a friend intervened to poke him in the eyes and because of the short sharp pain caused my fingers in his eyes, he instinctively dropped his arms from the back of my head and backed off having for the message.

We learned later he has some mental health issues but my friend definitely did the right thing. I’m so grateful for her quick thinking.

There are dozens (maybe hundreds) of severely autistic men in prison. Many of them bounce back and forth between prison and medium-secure psychiatric units. It is blindingly obvious to everyone who comes into contact with these men in prison that they are in the wrong place - but sometimes the system gets it wrong and sends these men to prison instead of MSU.

I would think that someone whose disability was so profound that they could not even walk down the street alone would realistically never be in a position to commit serious crimes. The problem lies with people who are a little higher functioning and can live semi-independently, but who still struggle with normal social mores.

and btw, for all we know some of these men who have a thing for breasts may grab hold of them tight and it would cause extreme pain/be impossible to move away from them if you don’t want your breast tissue torn.

Not disagreeing with that. It's not just autistic men who are prone to grabbing other people's body parts though, autistic women can be violent too. Hence my opinion that it's not a 'man vs woman' issue.

oops typos galore

I meant : ‘caused by fingers in his eyes’ and ‘backed of having got the message’.

I agree but when I say 'profoundly autistic' I mean someone who doesn't have a hope in hell of ever being independent. Like, possibly not even toilet trained.

So to be clear - it’s not all autistic people you think k should be immune from any prosecution, just your perception of what is ‘severely autistic’?

Oh no, we do realise that - we are very simply saying it doesn’t mean that, if they DO assault someone, they should be excused from any consequences.

Given you think that only ‘severely autistic’ people don’t know what they’re doing, I’m amazed you felt sorry for the very high functioning man who scared a woman on the bus upthread to the point she got the police involved. He is clearly not severely autistic so he must know what he was doing?

The feminist aspect is that these things always seem to happen to women and they are usually not nearly as strong as the men who hurt/bother/damage them

For those who haven't seen the young ladies updates on tiktok, she had a second man approach her door this evening and he was making crude comments about wanting to see her with her top off.

She explained in the comments that this second incident wasn't the same man she caught on camera initially, but somebody she vaguely knows of from the area who seems to have some mental health problems.

So that's two separate men coming to her flat within 24hrs.

She suspects its something to do with a drug dealing ex as in him sending people to scare her and that is, I assume, why she hasn't mentioned getting the police involved. She's probably scared of repercussions from the ex.

I was shocked when she said she's only 19, that poor girl having to deal with all of this shit.

A large (6ft+ and stocky) disabled man ran up to me on a field when I was 14 and placed his hand across my throat and squeezed. My dog bit him. He was with 3 carers at the time who should have been watching him yet our door was the one that the police came to.

I honestly think if my dog hadn’t bitten him (one single bite on the leg that created a puncture but no excessive injury) he could have killed me.

I am autistic and have ADHD. I’ve also been raped by a stranger. Lots of men terrify me, even some disabled men.

He will have known what he was doing as far as making a decision to approach and talk to the woman on the train every day, what he likely didn't realise was that he was scaring her and that his behaviour would get him into trouble with the police.

In his mind it was seemingly as simple as "I like this person, I enjoy speaking to her, I'm going to keep speaking to her" and he completely missed any and all social cues that indicate that she wanted him to leave.

Yes, which is why I've overused the words 'severely' and 'profoundly.'

I agree that it's a 'male' issue but not an 'autism' one. I believe that autistic men and women are often misjudged but I don't believe a man who is clearly intent on intimidating and hurting a woman can be misjudged. Autistic men and 'NT' men intimidate and hurt women frequently, it's definitely a male problem. Like i say, social media is full of armchair psychologists who see disturbing behaviour and blame it on autism and mental health issues. The simple truth is more straightforward.

More eloquent than anything I would have typed, I blame the heat of course.

What do you think that should mean in terms of consequences for him? Bearing in mind that the woman was so incredibly scared that she called the police

That’s horrendous and kind of an example of what I meant by sometimes delivering a short sharp pain is necessary to escape the grip of someone assaulting you… regardless of their mental capacity.

I hope nothing happened to your brave dog and the police also spoke to the carers about their extreme carelessness which nearly proved fatal!

Sorry that happened to you. His carers should have been held accountable, anyone who requires 3 people to supervise them should be very much supervised.

In this case as the young man was capable of holding down a full time job he would seemingly have the capacity to understand what the police are telling him, I feel that a very clear instruction to leave her alone and not approach her again would be sufficient as a first intervention.

I certainly don't think he should be hauled down the police station after the first report, then again even neurotypical men aren't hauled down the police station for stalking until they do something extreme. That was my experience anyway.

I really don’t know how 3 people could restrain a man of that size who was on an aggressive mission to hurt someone.

I feel this thread is descending into carer bashing. Caters are just human beings, they can’t control their patients, they can only mind and assist them

@HailAdrian As far as I know his carers weren’t even questioned by the police. My dog had to go through a full behaviour/temperament test and my parents were questioned too as I wasn’t old enough to be his legal owner at the time. He passed with flying colours and the policemen said they thought he was lovely.

The disabled man still isn’t supervised properly although I’ve only seen him in the village a few times since. The last time was 2 months ago, at the other end of the village to the care facility where the man lives. I only noticed him as my dog growled, hackles up terrified when he started to approach. My poor lad remembers almost 10 years on he’s never reacted like that to anyone else.

@LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet I do agree with you actually. The carers are just trying to do their job and shouldn’t be at risk themselves. I’m not sure what the solution is other than keeping the man indoors 24/7 and I don’t know that that’s fair. The outdoors is so beneficial to my mental health and I’m sure it helps him too

Yes I certainly don’t agree with the ‘lock em
up’ mentality - I still remember the ‘long stay hospitals’ that disabled people had to suffer in in subhuman conditions <shudder> - and I don’t think 3 carers could restrain anyone aggressive except maybe a child. I don’t know if more needs to be done to protect people or if it’s just a case that you’re one of those 1 in a million victims who just happened to be in this man’s beeline!

This is controversial, I know, but I'm so sorry they got rid of the Aspergers diagnosis, which is still how I consider myself.
There is a huge difference between someone who is profoundly disabled by autism and unable to live independently, and someone who would formerly have received the Aspergers diagnosis, and the removal of the distinction has I think created this situation where people argue for hours at cross purposes.

Clearly someone who is severly disabled, unable to live independendly, potentially non-verbal and not toilet trained, does not have criminal responsibility however in that case I'd expect the agencies responsible to ensure that if there are risk issues to the public, these are managed. And I'd certainly take no issue with someone defending them from attack should things go wrong.

The post from someone early who mentioned a man who abused his children, but was able to manage a highly paid job, be married etc, yet got excused from the abuse, is horrifying and also represents the absolute confusion that the merging of the diagnosis his created. Because of course people with Aspergers know right from wrong, and have criminal responsibility.

I think carers, generally speaking, do a wonderful job and I may well rely on them at some point in the future but if anyone in that situation should be held accountable, it has to be them. Even if it just means further training or risk assessment.

I remember the documentary on the Beeb about stalkers. Autism is a reason, but not an excuse.

If you are the victim, what condition the perpetrator has or has not does not really matter. Any resulting PTSD or trauma is not going to be lessened because the perpetrator happened to be disabled.
I can not go on a bus alone.. not been able to for years... because of my experience with someone who at the time, really should have had a carer with them.