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?

In this situation I would have asked the carer for the name and contact number of the service he worked for. Then contacted them straightaway, spoke to the most senior person available and told them exactly what happened and how useless the so-called "carer" was. I would also report to the police and would hope they would follow up with the service.
If the carer refused to give details, I would have followed him outside and seen if there were any other people from the service there ( a trip to NT venue may well be a group activity).
The fact that this young man twisted the hair around his hand, to get a better grip and make it harder to get away from, suggests to me that he has done this before. The fact that he did it twice suggests that he was very much wanting a reaction. And, most importantly of all, the fact that, despite having a one-to-one carer, he was able to get behind the counter then come back and assault the girl again is absolutely appalling. What if he had grabbed a knife from behind the counter? He clearly needs far more close supervision than he's got and I think everyone involved under-reacted.

Absolutely @MimiGC

It would be very obvious that somebody has such significant disabilities, my Son requently makes loud random noises, spins ,takes his shoes off ,tries to throw things ,there's nothing hidden about his disabilities, that said we are very aware of his behaviour and do our utmost to contain it.

That's very upsetting for your daughter. However the police cannot involved when severely autistic people are concerned as they do not have the capacity to understand what they have done, or that it causes pain, or that it is socially unacceptable. You wouldn't be able to call the police if a baby pulled your daughter's hair and this is a similar situation albeit with a much bigger and stronger 'baby' ! You raise a good point about public education, the public have been over educated about high functioning autism and do not realise that there are many with the same diagnosis whose cognitive level is significantly different. I think you would be right to raise the issue with the carer though as he or she should not have left such a vulnerable adult unattended causing risk to him and risk to the public.

However the police cannot involved when severely autistic people are concerned

That’s just bollocks.

What do you think they could do though ? They could report the incident to the Care Commission - on the basis that the carer was negligent but this could be done without police involvement. But realistically , unless you get names and details of the care agency, this is not likely to happen either. Someone is paying for 1-1 care for their disabled adult and not getting it. Sadly this is not unusual, I have seen a young man I know who is severely autistic run down a busy train platform while the 2 carers who were supposed to be looking after him ( he is 2-1) were looking at their phones ! I also think inclusion does need to be more nuanced as some autistic people need a safer and more secluded environment. I don't mean they should be shut away like in the 'old days' but that they should have access to a life that protects them.

You do realise this poor lad would have had little to no understanding of what he’s done? He clearly has severe autism. This is why I think people who have profound autism should have another diagnosis name, rather than people thinking they are in control of what they are doing. Yes his carer should have absolutely had a closer eye on him. But the police in this instant is a bit extreme. He was clearly fascinated by her blonde hair and sensory seeking wrapping his hands around it. Shouldn’t have happened but again, that’s his carers responsibility to be giving him 1:1 supervision and support whilst out.

This is seriously negligent.
If someone NEEDS two carers, their needs are very serious.

There is a young man locally who needs two strong, young male carers- I have never seen the carers with a phone in their hands...

Why don't they have the person they are caring for on a 'safety' harness if they are somewhere dangerous, like a train station?

Just crazy.

This... it is probably a common behaviour, grabbing at long hair, and there would have been warnings, had the carer looked {Hands raised, intent in the eyes of the man} It can be hard to get a hand loose if someone has grabbed and twisted hair like this, and very dangerous-it can used as a way to get someone down on the ground, and even more vulnerable to an attack.

The carer sounds hopeless.

Yes to be fair - this is an extreme case and I have seen far more excellent attentive and appropriate care for autistic adults but I wanted to mention it as an example of what can happen when attention slips but it was worrying as the platform is a narrow one with fast trains on both sides . I did mention it to the social worker when the same agency was suggested for my son !!

Some people argue that safety harnesses are not 'right' for autistic adults as they can look demeaning . My son has a lanyard explaining he has autism to the public which can help in some situations

Someone up thread mentioned a knife - my son thankfully wouldn't do that as he can't really use cutlery ! Some benefits to the severe side of autism !

I don't think my sin would understand thst a knife could harm someone tbh only uses a spoon or fork to eat.

Yes to be fair, he is getting better with a fork and a yogurt spoon. Yes no understanding at all of what their strength can do let alone a knife is a blessing at times.

You just need to read the thread to see how other people were shouting down the OP for daring to say he had obvious disabilities and how could she possibly know. Can't win.

And yet OP was afraid to challenge a man, who grabbed hold of her daughter’s hair (twice) and wouldn’t let go, because he’s autistic. FFS.

To those blaming the carers, it is usually a minimum wage job where you don't get paid from travel time (so basically less than minimum wage) and these people are taking on a huge responsibility and often putting themselves at risk for virtually no money and often with no training.
Carers are often funded by the council and they set the wages that families are allowed to pay them. I would love to pay more but am not allowed unless I top it up myself and I cannot afford to do that.
We should expect better of them but I don't think that is realistic given the "career prospects".

I don't think anyone is blaming the carers and I do think it should be far better recognised and financially rewarded than it is - it is more that it is unrealistic to blame the severely autistic adult who would not have been able to express an opinion about whether they should go to a busy public area where there are dangers for them and potentially some minor upsets for the public who don't expect adults to behave that way. Of course people can call the Police if they want - I once had an incident that resulted in the Police attending but it ended up with the angry member of the public being arrested and charged ! - which I certainly did not want as it does not help anyone to understand autism

Yes, absolutely true that carers are paid abysmally (been there, done that). But still, their employers have to be held accountable. Sending out untrained, incapable staff with clients who are possibly challenging, possibly dangerous, is a recipe for disaster.
I would also add, from my own experience and from what I have witnessed, that many carers are recruited from overseas and often have very poor English. It's entirely possible that the carer in the OP example didn't have the communication skills to engage with either his client or members of the public. Which is not acceptable either, but definitely happens. Just last week I was on a local bus when a man with learning disabilities got on with his "carer". The man tried several times to engage his carer in a bit of conversation, but was ignored throughout. The carer sat glued to his phone and didn't speak at all. Later when a member of the public spoke to the carer (just apologising for their dog getting in the way), the carer managed a few words of broken English in a very heavy accent which was hard to understand.

How do you know they are "recruited from overseas"? Care companies pay peanuts. They're not going to spend money going overseas to find people to ship over to work for them in the UK. The reason there are so many foreign workers working in care is because it is an easy job to get, it requires no qualifications or experience, and it is relatively flexible so it fits around their other commitments. Which is also why the majority of care workers are women. It has nothing to do with caring. A job that treats its workers like shit and pays them less than minimum wage (when you take into account the expenses of running a car and the travel time they don't get paid) isn't going to attract caring, empathetic individuals. People do a job like that because it is convenient.

You froze and can’t help your reaction. No one telling you what you should or shouldn’t do is going to change that. Apologise to your daughter and move on. But the carer should have had better awareness in that situation. But I’m not sure what a “normal person” counts as and maybe would have worded the post differently. Going to the police is a ridiculous suggestion in my opinion.

@PandaTime I don't know how to link to the website I'm afraid, but you can look yourself on the gov.uk website (ie they are the official statistics). In 2023, there were 145,823 visas given to overseas workers to come and work in health and social care roles, mostly people from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some will have had reasonably well paid jobs in healthcare, but many do come to work in low paid jobs in social care. The press is full of reports about how some of these are exploited once they arrive and in fact the gov.uk site itself warns oversee applicants about it.

I'm pretty left politically when it comes to economics and it's abyssal how low wages are given to high responsibility jobs like helping those with disabilities.

But I don't care how shit your wage is, if a woman is being harmed by your negligence, you are at fault.

Some carers can be intentionally crap though, just like some doctors, nurses, teachers etc can be crap. If they're not fit for the job or want to do the job properly, they shouldn't be in that job. I know some people believe a warm body, any warm body is better than none, but that doesn't help anyone and it puts the service user at risk.

If that isn't the case, then the responsibility lies with the company hiring them. Improper risk assessments, training, staffing levels etc.