AIBU to have not reacted when my daughter’s hair was grabbed, twisted and pulled by a non-verbal autistic man.

[SillyOldBucket]

At the weekend we visited a National Trust venue and stopped at the café for some lunch. My husband and one teenager daughter were sitting outside while I and our other 17-year-old daughter, who has long very blonde hair, joined the queue inside. I was standing just in front of her in the queue when I became aware of a boy/young man (I would guess aged about 20) beside us. He had his face up close to my daughter and was smiling at her. Initially, I thought it was someone she knew from college or her Saturday job but then all of a sudden he grabbed her hair, twisted it tightly around his hand, and was pulling very hard. I quickly realized that she didn’t know him and that he was non-verbal, probably autistic. However, I then remember that I kind of froze, thinking what do I do and didn’t know how to react. If it was a normal person, I would have at the very least shouted at them to let go or tried to prise their hand open, but I wasn’t sure if he would have responded badly or done something worse. I had time to think all this before his carer appeared and tried to get him to release his grip, but it took a good minute. To make matters worse, the young man then skipped into the kitchen behind the servery and his carer had to bring him back out, walked past us and exactly the same thing happened again!! The carer managed to get the boy to release his grip but no apology or anything. My daughter was quite shocked by it, but I think she was more shocked that I didn’t intervene, and I feel terrible and ashamed. My gut reaction should have been to protect her, but I think because we are always being taught to be understanding and tolerant of neurodiversity, I just froze not knowing what to do or how to react. What would anyone else have done in this situation? Can anyone with specialized knowledge advise on what would have been the correct thing to do? It’s made me realise that there is very little public knowledge/education on how to respond when confronted with a situation like this and also raises the question of whether it was assault. If it had been someone without autism, it would surely have been assault but because they were clearly on the spectrum, are we to be more tolerant despite being subjected to pain and shock?

If someone is attacking my children I really don't need education on the spectrum.
I will simply stop them from attacking 🤷‍♂️

Clearly with the capacity to understand your actions the young man isn't.

You said it yourself. An adult.

I’ve said multiple times now the responsibility lies with the people caring for him.

Then their career should treat them as the age they are mentally and they shouldn’t be able to get close enough to strangers to yank their hair.

17 and 11 years can be charged with assault in the UK. 9 year old not.

This is what confuses me. My boyfriend is autistic and has capacity, until he is in meltdown. He does not even know what he is doing. His case went to court because he turned down a caution, because he didn't know what he was doing. All he remembers is feeling absolutely overwhelmed by every sense in his body, and terrified. He just went along with it all to get it all over with in the end.

But yes, his case is vastly different to someone with profound disabilities who might lack capacity in general and not at a specific time. He can try and mitigate meltdowns by being aware of triggers. The person in the OP needed carers with him, which would suggest that they lack that self awareness. It sounds like he was let down by his carers.

Because there is an age of criminal responsibility, so we recognise in law some humans can commit criminal acts but not be criminally responsible.

The same principle applies to adults who lack mental capacity for a variety of reasons, like if someone has a heart attack at the wheel of a car and knocks someone over, or in cases of crimes committed while experiencing severe postpartum psychosis, or severe learning disability etc

I'm sorry he went through that ,autism does of course affect everyone differently paticularly in meltdown thst should have been taken into account.

It's highly unlikely that an autistic person with the mind of a toddler would be prosecuted in a court of law, but that doesn't mean they can commit assault without consequences. Serious assault would result in being locked in a secure unit so they are not a danger to the public.

In this case, if it was the first time this man had done this I would hope that the carer would report it to the relevant people so action could be taken to help prevent future incidents. If it wasn't the first time I would find it worrying.

This. Why did she not do something?

Fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
No one knows what their body will choose for them. It is instinct.

Personally I would have engage with him and attempted to persuade him to let go.

I would have held my daughter's hair higher if possible to prevent her scalp being pulled.

I would have had a word with the carer that they needed actually to be more careful.

Its absolutely wild that your daughter got attacked in front of you, and your main concern is not offending the person that done it, and falling over yourself to apologise for not describing as '"normal" (as if that is the main issue here)

take a step back and have a long hard look at yourself, because this is the biggest parenting fail imaginable. I have no idea how you have managed to reach the stage where people pleasing is more important than protecting your own daughter. Wtf is wrong with you?

No one needs to be tolerant of violence. If the man couldn't be safe out and about with one carer, he needs two carers. It doesn't remotely sound like the carer was able to manage the behaviour on his own.

I can't go on days out to places like national trust on my own with my kids, as they are autistic and often run off with overwhelm. They need 1 on 1 to be safe, so that is what we do.

There does need to be a risk assessment though . That’s not saying he shouldn’t be out in public, but that the risks need to be considered so that things can be put into place and this isn’t just to protect the public but him too.

What happens if he does this to a young girl with a dad who punches first and asks questions later? Trauma for the individual , that’s what!

OP, multiple people have insulted your daughter, the victim, on this thread and you have ignored every single one of them. What do you have against sticking up for your child? I get freezing when the assault happened, but letting people talk bad about her on a thread you created is low, especially when she didn't do anything wrong. Other people have stuck up her, why can't you?

OP, I have voted you ANBU. None of us know how we will react in a given situation, most people have had experiences where the fight/ flight/freeze reflex kicks in.

You were trying to process the unexpected event that was happening as you turned, with your brain trying to make sense of it.

Oh come on. Talk about kicking someone while they’re down.

You are completely missing the point. Yes, some people can ffeeze in an emergency situation, but if you do this, then you should look back with regret and be slightly ashamed of yourself (even if many others would react the same way). If the OP had done this, then it would have at least been understandable.

But that isnt what is happening. The OP actually thinks she might have done the right thing, and thinks she may have been correct not to do anything. That is an absolutely abdominal attitude, and is utterly indefensible.

It’s assault, people with autism have to abide by the law. I’m not saying I would report in such a situation but you would be within your rights. I know I would have been in fight mode in that scenario, that’s just who I am when it comes to my kids. My instinct would have been to get him off her.

Feeble excuse about being tolerant to neurodivergence. What if you were mistaken and he wasn’t neurodiverse? What if worse entailed? You could have at least shouted at him. I would have thumped him, she’s your daughter and you protect no matter what.

I was mugged in Amsterdam many years ago. I was there with a friend and she was the shy one and I was the confident planner type. When we were mugged she ran off and I totally froze standing there like a lemon in front of two men. She came back and screamed and it woke me up. Inwould never have predicted I would react like that. It's instinct. Xx

To abide by the law means that you have to have capacity to understand the law some people with autism won't have that capacity that doesn't mean nothing should be done and clearly the carer waa at fault here but the disabled person will.not be treated the same as someone who does have capacity.

He has a carer and was non verbal i would say it was fairly obvious he was disabled.