To be shocked at the behaviour of this support worker?

[Berriesnotcherries]

I was in the supermarket this afternoon and going up and down the aisles I several times encountered a man in his 40s, clearly with learning difficulties, who was accompanied by a younger male who I'm pretty sure was a support worker. The support worker was very loud and was making sly fun of the man he was accompanying, offering a kind of performative commentary. I don't think a family member or neighbour or similar would behave in that way. While I was in the queue to check out, they passed me a final time. The older man was holding a punnet of strawberries and offered the support worker one. The young man said, really loudly 'I'd rather go down on my grandma than put one of those in my mouth.' He roared with laughter and when it was clear his client hadn't understood what he'd said he repeated it with a 'c'mon, you must know...I'll show you on my phone when we're in the car.'

I was horrified and shared glances with a couple of equally stunned shoppers. I'm kicking myself for not approaching him and confirming that he was a support worker and finding out which agency he was working for. If I had a family member who needed support, I'd be horrified to think they could be paired with someone like this. I keep thinking of the older man and worrying about him: the younger man had no respect for him or anyone else.

AIBU? Is there anything that, late in the day, I can do? If only I'd thought to take a photo... but then what?

As a parent of a disabled child who will need support as an adult this has genuinely made me cry. I don’t know how you could report it…maybe phone police non emergency number?

I'm sorry I made you cry, but frankly I feel like crying about it too. Thank you for confirming that this was not acceptable. I half-expected to be told I'm a tedious old pearl-clutcher.

That's abuse ,if that's the behaviour in public what the hell goes on behind closed doors.
That person shouldn't be anywhere near vulnerable people.

There are several videos online where people have confronted the poor behaviour they’ve witnessed from careers with their clients in supermarkets or with children in the park. Some have gone onto report them.

I’ve seen it myself where the carer is totally ignoring the person they are paid to care for, some carers have other carers with them and they talk and ignore their clients, or they walk way in front of them.

So several people witnessed this, and no one said anything. The moment has passed, so what is supposed to be done now?

Okay, I missed the moment and I should have acted. Thanks for adding to the guilt trip. Are you always so nonconstructive in your criticism?

I will say that I think being talked down to here on MN and called a pearl-clutched in the past has encouraged me to ignore my instinctive responses. There was a time when I was young when I would have confronted this guy, but the 'You're old, everyone swears and calls people cunts in public' brigade here have caused me to second-guess my gut reactions.

All I can do is keep a lookout for this guy next time I'm in that supermarket. Perhaps I'll go next week at the same time and see if I can catch him action.

Awful behaviour

shame on him behaving like that

Awful. I’ve worked in support for decades and this isn’t common, and is very much not tolerated

I would call the police and adult social services asap and give as much detail as possible.

Location where you saw them, time, physical description. It may be possible to trace them this way.

TheComments are completely inappropriate and a safeguarding risk. please don't delay.

I will say that I think being talked down to here on MN and called a pearl-clutched in the past has encouraged me to ignore my instinctive responses. There was a time when I was young when I would have confronted this guy, but the 'You're old, everyone swears and calls people cunts in public' brigade here have caused me to second-guess my gut reactions.

I'm honestly not having a dig here but if an internet forum had the power to do that to me, I really wouldn't want to use it any more.

I don't think there's anything you can do about this now though, as the police unfortunately just don't have the time to be looking through CCTV etc and chasing this sort of thing up.

Hopefully you'll bump into them again one day and you'll be able to report him.

Was the support worker wearing a lanyard?