Sexual harassment of an autistic employee.

[1FootInTheRave]

Just hoping for a bit of guidance to help my friend. Friend has a 21 year old son who has autism. He works and has been suffering sexual harassment off a 30 odd year old male in the work place. This person has been following him after work and making grossly inappropriate comments of a sexual nature. Friends son is clearly upset by this and has confided in his mum. His bosses have been informed and following a short investigation have deemed it his word against the perpetrators. Friends son actually has an independent witness to some of this abuse although I believe his bosses are unaware of this.

Friends son is now fearful of going to work and does not feel safe. Friend wants to go in and speak to his bosses. I have suggested acas and possibly police involvement.

Can anyone advise further how she can best deal with this?

Many thanks.

Bumping for you

Definitely get in touch with the police. My son and his friend had a similar problem, they were around 17 years old but the police took it seriously, my son has autism and they were straight round! They didn’t press charges but he did lose his job and his bosses gained a little more understanding about taking sexual harassment seriously!

Thank you so much.

Police was my thought too.

It's absolutely disgusting that this hasn't been taken seriously by his employers.

Police and ACAS as this is two issues, the sexual harassment which is a police matter, as it’s happening outside of work. Secondly his work is responsible for providing a safe place to work. By involving the police his employer will have to take this into account.

Contact the police today.

Speak to ACAS and then help the friends son to email employer/HR; refer to the light touch investigation and advise that the employee has been reported to the police. Advise the employer that there are witnesses to the sexual harassment and ask them to conduct a full investigation, state how it is impacting on the individual and ask how they intend to keep friends son safe at work.