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?

YABAD

I suspect it was the long hair the young man went for
My son has no concept of male/female, if he was going to pull long hair it wouldn't matter to him wether the long hair was on a man or a women

Porcelainpig

So you think it would have been different if a male was targeted? Where are you getting that from? Many of us here have been assaulted by men too you know, but can understand the situation is different to an intentional assault“

Again, the result is the same, intentional or otherwise. If a teenager (male or female) is minding their own business standing in a queue at an NT property on a day out with her family and is suddenly assaulted by someone they can’t see because that person is behind them pulling her hair, they are igoing to be frightened whoever the perpetrator.

The young man in question should never have been put in the position where he could do that. His carer was clearly negligent.

x2boys

I suspect it was the long hair the young man went for
My son has no concept of male/female, if he was going to pull long hair it wouldn't matter to him wether the long hair was on a man or a women

Which you are aware of and no doubt keep a close eye to ensure such incidents don’t occur. In this instance, the young man, who was allowed to get close enough to OP’s daughter to pull her hair, was failed by his carer.

Have you RTFT? There’s plenty of victim blaming comments.

I agree it's the carer at fault

It doesn't matter, the daughter is the victim here. What sort of society are we living in when a male can assault a female with no consequences. What were his carers doing?

Well clearly it isn't normal to have assaulted a young woman.

There will be consequences,clearly the risk assessments need to be revised and he needs a much higher level of support but you can't punish someone who doesn't understand what they have done wrong
Even if he was eventually moved into a more secure environment, it would be to keep everyone safe including him ,not to punish him.

Also, he was behind her, so it would've been impossible for her to do anything.

I really feel for you, OP. This must have been terrifying for you both and I know what you mean when you were able to identify that the assailant had special needs of some sort, it's very clear - mainly because he just grabbed your daughter's hair and wouldn't let go.

So I think you're seeing your freezing as "being tolerant of ND people" but in fact you didn't know what to do, he was clearly ND so I think you KNEW in your subconscious almost that he wouldn't react like a non-ND person would. That's why you hesitated.

I think that's why you think you froze because of his autism or whatever but not because you thought "oh I'll let him crack on with it, poor ND bloke, I can't have his fun being taken away from him, he can crack on pulling my daughter's hair" as some people are taking great delight in saying.

Also we women often do tend to freeze when we are threatened; it's a way of keeping ourselves safe. If you'd created a big fuss your daughter could have wound up being badly hurt, as this would have freaked the guy out. So you actually did the RIGHT thing and by doing nothing you helped de-escalate the situation even if it doesn't feel like it!

Nobody can truly say what they'd do in a situation like that. I wager those who would go all Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would do exactly the same as you when in that position.

Your daughter shouldn't be disappointed in you, but I understand her feeling distressed by it. I suggest you explain why you might have reacted thus, what the guy was thinking, and that you've been told how to deal with it in the future. Share the info with her as these people are around and if she's got lovely long hair it will help her to be aware of how to deal with this should it happen again.

Honestly, put a lot of these posters on Ignore and be kind to yourself. I suspect I would have frozen as well.

No, I agree, I wouldn't blame a natural response, I just don't think it would be safe to do.

If I was grabbed from behind by an unknown person I have no idea how I'd actually react. I know experience how painful and frightening it is, but I also know from experience that reacting certain ways often makes things more dangerous.

@x2boys how will there be consequences? Only if the support worker / carer does anything, presumably? The OP says he laughed about it and didn't so much as say sorry. Seems unlikely he will report it in order to reevaluate the risk assessment.

There aren’t “clear consequences” for the carer.

Since no one intervened in any way, which includes talking to them after it happened, no one can raise this with the carer. “clearly” they are unlikely to adjust the risk assessment themselves given they were “almost laughing” when it happened.

Yeah this is my worry too. He wont report what happened for fear of (rightly) getting in trouble which is why I feel like it would be helpful if the op DID report it to the police. Not to get the man in trouble (he wont anyway) but just so they can start planning proper support for him.

One of our pws (people we support) went on the bus with an agency worker, apparently she let him sit next someone who was already on the bus then just sat on the opposite seat and played on her phone. The pws started touching the womens leg he was sat next to and was stimming to himself which frightened the woman.
In my opinion he wouldnt have been touching her leg in a pervy way, more likely he was just interested in the material she was wearing but obviously she wouldnt have known that. Then when she stood up to move out of the way, he didnt move and she then assumed he was blocking her exit. At this point the agency worker saw the commotion stepped in to help and the women went down to the bottom floor of the bus (they were on the top floor, double decker) and complained about him to the driver.
The driver and lady reported it to the police who then were able to look at the CCTV and get his address from the bus pass used then came to his house a few days later. They didnt know he had a disability at this point, they thought they were coming to investigate SA but after speaking to us and seeing pws, they dropped him and that agancy worker never came back as it should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

They do have ways to look into things and sign post to the appropriate authorities. You never know it might have been his brother and the family has no support at all..

Just because someone doesn’t have intent to harm when they harm someone doesn’t make it any more ok or less harmful to the person being assaulted. Dangerous territory there.

Well it was the long hair… shouldn’t of been wearing that… he doesn’t know any better…

Mind of a toddler body and strength of a 6ft man.

Amazing how many non-learning disabled adults don't comprehend what it means to have very significant learning disabilities and just assume everyone is just as able to control their behaviour as them, as though it was a question of morals and not cognitive capacity. Or that autism is not the same condition as having learning disabilities, but that around 30% of autistic people do also have learning disabilities.

But how would I know whether man who came up behind me and pulled my hair or started touching me on the bus had learning disabilities or was a man attacking me because they could? Even if I did am I expected to accept being assaulted? I need to defend myself, not stop and think about the other person. That might mean shouting at him, stamping on his foot, slapping him away etc. but that's not my problem.

The problem is the carer who by all accounts was useless and shouldn't have allowed it to happen in the first place.

The OP is very clear. She is implying that a "normal person" could have attacked her child and she'd have responded differently. So by her definition, "normal" is someone that is not autistic. NOT someone who doesn't pull hair. You're deliberately ignoring that. As is Mumsnet.

Projecting? Oh stop.

Nobody has said this behaviour is ok and we should let it happen

You just did.

It's lack of exposure, before I had my kids with learning disabilities or worked in the field I knew absolutely nothing about it all and I am ashamed to say I probably would have come out with some of the things on this thread.

What's that got to do with being assaulted? Surely you're not saying it's ok what happened to OPs daughter are you?

If ANYONE is assaulted and wants the police’s help, they should deal with it. Nothing in the original post indicates this attack was driven by gender or that and no one has said they expect her daughter should tolerate it because she’s a woman.

Not everything is about gender, this is about inadequate care/support. As others have said, the man may not even have considered gender - I’ve had my hair grabbed my men and women with severe learning disabilities because I have long thick hair which looks nice to touch.

As others have said, reporting to the police may lead to safeguarding and proof of higher/different level of support. My dd2 has 2:1, but for a long time I was struggling with her alone and without any training (SS flatly refuse to train parents). The carer should report the incident, but may not. The carer might be a family member with no training or proper help. I know several families who only ended up getting the support they needed due to phoning 999 during violent or potentially violent incidents, sadly.

The person being assaulted in this instance was female @rrrrrreatt hence my reference to women - no idea why so many 'gender' police are getting involved here especially as I assume you mean sex, not gender.