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?

@NeverKnowinglyUnderstated she was in and out of consciousness when the ambulances arrived. Pale as a sheet though. I’ve checked the news around the event and nothing has been reported so I am hoping that she survived.

Very doubtful. Stopping someone using force in defence of force is fine.
Having any disability or special needs is not an excuse to attack who you want without consequence or retribution.
What of he had a knife or any other weapon?

Situational awareness is important- If you see anyone or anything that makes you feel uneasy, move well away.

An adult male near here has two strong carers, and if he breaks away, people backtrack, cross the road, turn on their heel while the carers attempt to corral him ( probably on minimum wage)

Nah I would have been biting his hand off 😅 sorry, and I work with ND people but my daughter? No chance. Instinct would have taken over and my instinct is to protect her.

This is an interesting question op and it's a shame that posters aren't actually answering it.

I once had a terrifying experience in a park when a young man with learning difficulties tried to push my toddler in a lake. I blocked him but he was strong and it was really scary.

The carers did intervene but weren't apologetic. I did report it to a police officer in the park and he said they couldn't do anything.

This is probably something your daughter will think back and question many times during her adult life.

Not at all but there's little the police can actually do in the case of someone with a mental age of a toddler. It's different if the person has capacity.

Clearly the risk assessment for taking this lad out in public failed in this case.

I never said.it was but if your dh decided then to lay they severely disabled man out flat thsn that would be actual bodily harm ,there, defending yourself and your child is one thing carrying on to assault them is quite another.

Your daughter would've been entirely within her rights to defend herself, and boot him in the bollocks to get him off her. If my daughter's hair was grabbed, I'm certain I'd intervene (rightly or wrongly).

This is a myth. It's fight, flight, freeze or fawn. All are perfectly normal reactions to shocking or traumatic things. Think how many women are blamed for 'not fighting back' during an assault. They freeze because instincts kicked in and this, through evolution was an effective strategy to not die.

Op, not one of us would know what we would do in the circumstances. We weren't there.

The things to do is to look after your daughter and your relationship (as it sounds like you did).

Your daughter was being assaulted for a whole minute and you did nothing? It then happened a second time and again you did nothing? I understand your daughter freezing as she was the victim but my reaction would’ve been to do something, anything.

The man in question clearly had very complex needs and was not being properly supported by his carer. Would one carer even be adequate? I get that there may have been a specific way to best deal with this man but it wouldn’t necessarily work for others who display similar behaviour, and the stranger on the receiving end of it wouldn’t have a clue.

I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people to tolerate physical assault and potentially be blamed if they instinctively react in a less than perfect way. Being attacked is traumatic and the perpetrator lacking the capacity to understand what they’re doing doesn’t make it less so, unfortunately.

Your in the wrong job 🙄

Once he had loosened his grip she would have been better off removing herself from the situation. Going into the toilets and lock herself in if she had to. But the carer should also have removed him from the situation. He definitely shouldn't be rewarded by having a meal out.

Are you sure it was a paid carer? Did you notice them wearing a lanyard or anything? Could have been a parent and parent/carers don't know how to deal with these situations either. We're just expected to get on with it. This is why so many end up in secure hospitals.

The support worker was not by his side and doesn’t sound sufficiently skilled or experienced to manage his behaviour.

Your response was very understandable, you and your daughter were let down by the support staff.

For future reference ( hope this never happens again) remain calm secure your hair near the scalp, use minimal language to specify what you want the person to do can help. E.g. “let go” rather than “no”, “stop”

Having said that sometimes trained staff experience incidents in the community and even when they are doing everything they have planned for to deescalate, members of the public want to interact and get involved or demand an explanation when a simple ‘sorry they are disabled’ is all that can be said because that person in crisis is already experiencing sensory overload and lots of adult talking is only going to make things worse.

I'm 100% not, thank yoooou 🥰

Well, yes, the sort of person who does not go around yanking complete strangers' hair. FFS.

We can all say "I would have done xyz" but you never really know until it comes to it. I would talk to your daughter and apologise for not reacting. Hair pulling like that is really painful.

From another perspective, I have non verbal autistic children and have worked professionally in this area. Hair grabs are quite difficult to get out of and leave you vulnerable (because your hands instinctively go to the top of your head, often leaving your face uncovered). I think a firm 'no' and hand gesture (like PP suggested) would be best until carers could release the grip, but nothing which would cause the man to act erratically (e.g. because he got a shock). However, you could never have known this.

Going to the police for this wouldn't actually benefit anyone.

Exactly. If he can't be trusted not to assault strangers in a cafe, then he shouldn't be in the cafe.

Interesting you write ‘we are always told to be tolerant of neuro diversity’ - he was a violent man pulling on your daughters hair, sod the excuses. Who is telling you to be tolerant of that behaviour?!

Profoundly disabled people often see hair as a sensory thing. Same as a baby. You wouldn't describe a baby as not a normal person would you?

@TheGruffalochild that wasn't Norfolk was it?

Your poor daughter. This is horrendous. Did no one else around react either? And for it to happen twice is upsetting. Hope she is okay. My DD goes to a martial arts class, I told her it’s for fun, but really it’s so she can defend herself if the worse happens

I honestly do not think you failed her. Freezing is an automatic response - it's fight, flight or freeze. All are logical evolutionary actions developed eg if we are being chased by a lion - the instincts are to either try and run (which may or not work - the lion might run faster), fight (which may or may not work - the lion may be stronger) or freeze (ie play dead, which may work if the lion likes to leave his prey before eating it). It cannot be helped and none of us know how we'll react until we are in the situation. It's an evolutionary thing to try and keep us safe. I think it's a good thing to explain to your daughter that it's OK to have been scared and to not know what to do or to think afterwards I should've done x, y, z. That's all normal, but it does not mean how you handled it at the time was wrong. I think this is so important as we hear so often about women freezing during sexual assault and people not understanding or blaming the victim.

I also think the only way you'd fail your daughter was if you minimised her feelings for example by laughing at her or not talking to her about it and how she felt/feels. You've not done that so in my eyes you've not failed her.