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

There is a huge range of needs out there. I know of one teenager who is on 2:1 staffing because he is impulsively destructive. When out for a walk he's thrown himself in someone's garden and started ripping up the flowers. The whole thing was over in less than 30 seconds and it came out of no where. This was what triggered him getting 2:1 and eventually a DoLs. Nothing he does (or tries to do) surprises me anymore but it took a long time after a lot of incidents before he started getting the care he needs.

As this man is in his 30s I'd imagine they just got complacent with him. Perhaps his outbursts were known and more or less predictable. Perhaps he'd been showing massive improvement and this was a reward. Regardless, the failing lies with him not being properly supervised. Sounds like he needs 3:1 which would allow one carer to use their phone (for work purposes) or nip to the loo or have 5 minutes etc. but the money won't be there for him to have 3:1 I presume.

Given he requires two carers for escorted leave, he is highly likely to reside in a secure care placement. He is not just popping to the shops by himself. We don't know the bail conditions, but if his leave is now not permitted and he is in a secure home that meets his needs, how is he more of a risk to the public than if he were in prison? Remand is for public protection not punishment, there has been no sentence yet and it's not clear if he is even fit to plea.
People confuse the impact to the victim and the current risk to the public

He has a very low level of understanding. Yet he didn't choose to push a child at the on site cafe. He didn't throw them into the turtle enclosure. He didn't hit a random adult walking around the zoo. He knew enough to zone in on a small, weak, vulnerable child and to choose to attack and throw them in to probably the most dangerous enclosure in the zoo.

Who is ssying that?
I dont tjink you understsnd how broad the autism spectrum can be
Some people are do profoundly disabled by it that they nerd full time supervision
Ss they cant communicate
Jave an extremely limited understsnding of the world around them
Have extremely volatile and challenging behsviour
They will not be left alone to their own devices.

Agreed

In theory we could say 'innocent until proven guilty' means everyone should get bail automatically.

The questions to be answered are: is the man a potential danger to society if on bail and 2. Is he likely to abscond and not turn up for his trial.

They have said the man is 'not fit to be interviewed' - that would suggest he's in some kind of hospital or mental health facility, in which case he will be under observation, possibly even sedated, so it's probably reasonable to say he is being kept from being a danger or in a position where he could abscond.

That's only my conjecture, though.

Putting a random child into a crocodile pit is not the behaviour of someone sane.

The carers should be arrested

I don’t know why so many people think random members of the public need to be informed about every aspects of an emerging case. I‘m sure the people who need to understand why he has been bailed already do and everyone else can wait to form an opinion. This attitude of having a right to know will see trials collapsing in other cases. We need to resist.

A child young enough to not understand the consequences of throwing another child into a crocodile pit wouldn’t have the size or strength to do so. If this man was known to have the mental age of a toddler and a tendency to impulsivity, he shouldn’t have been allowed around children.

He does need to be somewhere with high security. The location is probably not prison.

The law requires people to have some capacity to plead guilty or not guilty. I think you need to blame the law if you are upset, not people on Mumsnet. Or do we need to change the law so that people with no understanding can be automatically imprisoned? Should we get rid of trials too?

This is reassuring, thank you. I think this is what OP was getting at.

And, realistically, he will be locked up, though not in a prison.

We don't know anything about what his urges or intentions might have been. For all we know, he might have thought he was playing a game.

You are so right. I remember my nan was appalled at the time and said it will lead to problems for the police and for the public dealing with people who need care. A big institution not far from us closed due to this policy and then a smaller one closed (probably loads more, but I remember these two as my nan was worried) - this is back in the early 90s before the internet and no one could really complain or show concern back then. Yes it was during Thatcher's reign.

Near me, there's a row of shops and a guy with obvious special needs runs out of one of the flats and into the shops and hits people. He lives with his mum and the locals know to go and get mum, but it is frightening especially when he chases children.

This. he quite possibly wasn't committing an act of violence or intending to harm anyone according to his understanding of the world. He many not have understood that crocodiles are dangerous or that a fall from a heigh is dangerous. We hear from many parents on here getting beaten up and injured by their learning disabled children. Do you think that is just going to stop as they grown up?

Anything could hsve triggered him
The noise the smells
Anything.

I agree with this.

Then there’s blame in his risk assessment and he shouldn’t have been allowed to be near vulnerable children.

I agree. Definitely not safe to be in public. I’d also be prosecuting the carers as they were clearly incompetent to let it happen.

The real question is whether the carers were making a realistic effort to supervise. All too often the most vulnerable people get fobbed off with untrained carers on minimum wage. If you think it's pearl-clutching to want to establish all the facts before reaching any conclusions, I really hope you're never on a jury.

What if this was the first time?

No, the person who signed off on the trip is the person ultimately responsible. Only if the carers decided on a whim to take him out that day with no risk assessment and no input from their manager/supervisor would they be solely accountable. For all you know the carers may have objected to the trip but were told to just get on with it and any argument would have cost them their job. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes to light that the carers were on MW and lacked experience. I could, of course be wrong, and they were highly trained individuals but until we know that, putting all the blame on them at this stage is wrong.

He’s dangerous whether intentional or not. The public need protecting from him. If that means locking him up, so be it.

I’m quite woke but I agree with you (being a mum of w child the same age!) unfortunately until someone does something violent like this (similar to Tate modern) there is no way to tell which learning difficulties people are a danger. Once they’ve done it though they need to be risk assessed and most likely kept away from children and public .

But it's common for even trained professionals to conflate the two. So not unlikely the media would. However learning difficulties can also be specific and challenging - it's very individual. IQ is only one area of development

All of those asking for him to be locked up, how do you envisage that would happen? Have you read the MAH report at all?