AIBU to think a man accused of throwing a child into a crocodile enclosure should not get bail?

[YourKeenOliveNewt]

Aibu to think the man who threw an unknown 3 year old into a crocodile enclosure shouldn't be out on bail?

If anyone could provide any insight into the reasoning behind why was granted bail I would be very interested to hear it.

AIBU: He's a danger to society
AINBU: Innocent until proven guilty

What I find quite interesting is that the child was thrown into the enclosure with more particularly dangerous animals (ie species capable of doing extreme harm of death).

The zoo has other lesser dangerous animals and yet the enclosure the child was thrown into an enclosure with, was crocodiles. Interesting choice, rather than being thrown in with say, birds, or other less lethal animals.

Politically incorrect or not, idgaf - regardless of any disabilities that were present (and I'm not arguing that they were not, or that they were not very severe, either), that suggests to me, there was some kind of understanding of the potential outcomes.

All will hopefully be revealed. But I don't quite buy it.

A child, nor parents, should never, ever have to worry about a stranger TOUCHING their children, let alone picking them up and throwing them over barriers into enclosures with lethal animals. A person like this is not safe to be among the public, regardless of the reason they committed the act.

I hope assessments become much more strict, as a result. In my eyes 'this was hideous but the person was severely mentally disabled so' will never be right, and nor would it for ANY parent of an innocent baby thrown into an enclosure to be killed by animals.

I wonder why the police did not ask him why he picked the crocodile enclosure... 🙄

Difficult. Guess they have to assess each case. Wouldn't like that job!

That would only be suitable if he had a MH condition. There's a difference between LD and MH.

@Toenailz maybe, or maybe that's just where they all happened to be when whatever impulse crossed this man's mind. Maybe there's some other logic to it that we can't think of, because we're not learning disabled. Maybe something happened, like the child happened to be in the way or something. Maybe this man is both learning disabled and enjoys violence / wanted the child to get hurt (which would hopefully be reflected in care plans, the restrictions he requires, his future placements etc etc). We just don't know.

I hope we can now all agree though that we can't make any generalisations to other learning disabled people based on one man that we know almost nothing about.

Or it's just where they were when it happened and it doesn't suggest anything at all.

It's even possible the crocodile area is the only area where you are looking down on an open enclosure from height so it wouldn't have been possible to throw anyone in with birds or any other animal.

No. There is a walk-through with the farm animals, thats easy to see just by looking at the website. I'm willing to bet (but also admit if I'm wrong) that this was not the only such enclosure.

I can quite see, and consider the point 'where he happened to be when the impulse took over' - but, personally, I doubt it.

A bit too coincidental for my personal view.

The police got no info out of him regarding a motive, or why he "picked " the crocodile enclosure, because he was not fit to be interviewed.
Why are you trying to fill in the gaps?

No, but we can certainly say 'checks and risk assessments are clearly not vigorous enough, and now need to be improved drastically'.

It's far from the only case, and attacks on members of the public (or indeed care staff!) are sadly not quite as rare as a lot of people seem to think.

Perhaps he was non verbal - meaning an answer indeed is impossible. Why ARE you filling gaps if no one knows anything?

I admittedly haven't read the full thread, but I'd be surprised if anyone suggested he needs prison time.

But lets not forget, he almost killed a child. No adult should even be TOUCHING other peoples children. He wasn't fit to be in this scenario, this setting, or around the public.

Absolutely, a severely mentally disabled person is very vulnerable. But let's not forget, so is a 3 year old BABY.

A walk through is a walk through, not a viewing area at height which does seem to be popular for croc areas at zoo type places.

He wasn't fit to be interviewed. It sounds like he isn't capable of making the choices you are implying but also happy to be proved wrong as more information comes out.

But you are saying he specifically picked the crocodile enclosure. On what grounds do you think that? The police have not got an answer out of him.

Why was he not fit to be there? Do you know his history? What is in his risk assessments?
He might have gone there loads of times before with no issues whatsoever.

Talking about ‘when the impulse took over’ makes me wonder about intrusive thoughts. I have a long history of intrusive thoughts- some of them quite alarming, which I won’t describe here as some will take it very literally and think I’m violent/aggressive. I’m not at all, and I’ve never acted on any intrusive thoughts. They’re just an uncomfortable but infrequent part of life for me (and actually for quite a lot of people). Can a person with LD have intrusive thoughts? Might they be more likely to act on them?

I apologise if this is offensive- it isn’t meant to be; it’s a genuine question.

I mean, it's almost impossible to say because it could have been completely random/ first ever incident of this nature but I would agree that in this case it is very likely ''checks and risk assessments are clearly not vigorous enough, and now need to be improved drastically'.

I get what you're suggesting about increased risk of violence in people with a learning disability (e.g. in special schools compared to mainstream schools etc), but we can't make decisions based on statistical population risks (or we'd have to restrict all men as that's probably the biggest risk of all). Sadly all violence, and attacks on the public, are not as rare as people think regardless of learning disability and people with learning disabilities can't be treated as criminals in waiting.

Not offensive at all. I have OCD and my learning disabled children have OCD. They can have intrusive thoughts and 'feelings' but they are highly distressing to the sufferer of OCD.

They separately also have random impulses (like throwing dinner on the floor for no reason). These appear to be strong urges which are not distressing to them. Sometimes the motivation is sensory seeking / watching cause and effect and other times the motivation is completely unknown.

And again, there other open type enclosures where a child can be thrown over a barrier. So whilst I do genuinely read peoples points here, I still stand by my belief that it was extremely coincidental, almost to the point of not, that an enclosure with such lethal animals, was chosen.

I'm aware of one other case that somebody picked up a rabbit from the petting zoo area of a zoo, carried it to the alligator enclosure (again, viewable from above), and threw the rabbit in.

I'm personally aware, of a severe sexual assault that happened at my place of work, by a mentally disabled person, and again personally aware, of a case where a woman was beaten severely by a person she was caring for, due to completely inadequate risk assessments and staffing (the carer had warned her workplace that something like this was going to happen!). There are other instances I've personally, first hand experienced too, at least another two.

So, for everybodys sake, risk assessments and care needs to be massively reviewed.

It's not okay for innocent members of the public to be put at risk because 'the poor person doesn't know any better'. I cannot image what those parents felt seeing their child being mauled by a crocodile, because of the direct actions of another human being, nevermind that being thrown over barriers over that height without lethal animals in the mix, is harmful enough and capable of seriously injuring a baby.

For the people raising the issue of prison sentences for criminals who have no mental disabilities - it's an entirely seperate issue, like comparing apples and pears - and I daresay at least 90% or more of mumsnet members would agree sentences are not nearly severe enough, and that we don't want to be put at risk by ANYONE.

The outcome is the same regardless whether the person was mentally disabled, or whether it was done by someone who wasn't. A poor baby was almost killed by a man.

Thanks @StartingFreshFor2026, interesting to know.

I'm not suggesting they be treated as criminals in waiting.

I'm suggesting that if someone is so mentally impaired, there absolutely should be 'high risk' activities that are off the table. That includes being in close proximity to babies - unless you have extremely adequate staffing, which, I'd invite any carer to tell me they think correct staffing levels always happen.

Pardon? What have I made up? Please explain.

Your take is wrong, as has been pointed out numerous times on this thread!

When I looked up incidences of people throwing babies or young children it was mostly women. Surely from that we need to consider if it is safe to allow women near babies.

Even if they've never posed a risk to babies in their entire lives?

Because that would exclude many public places, particularly those that people with severe learning disabilities tend to enjoy - swimming, farms, family friendly restaurants, there are babies and young children just about everywhere!

This approach would lead to really diminished lives for people with severe learning disabilities effectively shut out from the community.

Yes. That’s not offensive whatsoever.

My son has an absolute myriad of needs, one of which is OCD. There is a link between Autism & OCD.

He would have an intrusive thought that he absolutely cannot move on from until it’s done. Sometimes it’s turning on lights, flushing the toilet. Yesterday it was biting me. He tried at 7am and because he obviously wasn’t allowed was distressed for an hour.

I would bet a great deal that there’s absolutely no link to it being a crocodile in there, and more likely that he thought the child was in his way so essentially moved him.

That doesn’t make it acceptable, and still definitely means he requires very close supervision, but I don’t believe the level of danger was the point.

Not that I’m convinced the point matters.

You said

In fact, anyone suggesting that would have been disciplined for ableism

Whereas that's not a fact is it? It's just something you made up.