Shame on BBC for victim blaming and stigmatising ASD

[Gloriarty]

Shame on you BBC - what a triumph of victim blaming and stigmatising

Wow

Man kills woman. She enjoyed spa days and lavish treats while they were dating - and then she was hard to live with while she was grieving close family suicides. And she was an escort. A very expensive one. BBC, what conclusions are you looking for me to draw here?

And then let's explore Aspergers Syndrome as a driver for murder. Because an interest in fixing motorbikes is the crucial factor here, rather than being a mysogynist arsehole who murders the woman he loved. Because you need to lean on a condition the perpetrator wasn't even diagnosed with - and not just call him yet another (yet another) hate-filled man who'd rather kill his loved one than let them free.

Georgina Symonds deserves a better tribute. Additionally, it is unsubstantiated and deeply harmful for a major news outlet to cover Asperger's syndrome framed in these terms.

I've lodged my complaint here

And gloriarty - I would never say my son has 'violent outbursts' - because violence is accompanied by intent to hurt someone. My son does not have intent to hurt anyone.

I only ever describe them as distressed behaviours.

But that's sort of the point isn't it about differences in such a broad spectrum - you have to look very individually at what is going on and what the autism is doing.

" When the alleged involved find themselves trapped in a certain way they might resort just through logic alone to the idea that they have to get rid of the person who is causing the threat. This is just an impression there is insufficient research to draw solid conclusions yet."

It might be a quote from an authority - but the authority is speculating very broadly and clearly says there is insufficient evidence to draw conclusions.

And while he may be an expert is ASD - he's not an expert on murder. An expert of anything can probably give you a plausible logic to anything ( e.g. An expert on wine might tell you about rare bacterium growth causing psychosis; an expert on air travel might tell you about the harmful effects of jetlag on being able to judge the consequence of your action etc etc etc).

The jury judged it invalid - but the feature style presentation seems to double-guess that conclusion.

Yes but it's Simon Baron-Cohen - THE UK expert on autism. You can't blame the Beeb for listening to him. As I said earlier he is behind a lot of the changes in the way autism is understood and conceptualised now. He practically defines autism in the UK.

I personally disagree with a lot of his framing of autism and the way he understands it. I don't think his research is particularly relevant to the type of autism my son has, but the BBC is being completely appropriate in seeking and extensively quoting his view. He is the leading expert on autism in the U.K. What he says goes. You don't have to agree with him (as I keep saying I often don't) - but you can't complain about the BBC relying heavily on his opinion. It's appropriate & responsible reporting.