"Metropolitan Police officers assaulted autistic boy"
Discussion
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-173667...
"Metropolitan Police (Met) officers assaulted a 16-year-old boy with severe autism by forcing him into handcuffs and leg restraints during a school trip, the High Court has ruled.
The judge said the boy, now 19, also had his human rights breached.
The boy, who also has epilepsy, was subjected to disability discrimination and false imprisonment, it was ruled.
He was awarded £28,250 in damages following the incident at a swimming pool in Acton, west London, in 2008."
"Metropolitan Police (Met) officers assaulted a 16-year-old boy with severe autism by forcing him into handcuffs and leg restraints during a school trip, the High Court has ruled.
The judge said the boy, now 19, also had his human rights breached.
The boy, who also has epilepsy, was subjected to disability discrimination and false imprisonment, it was ruled.
He was awarded £28,250 in damages following the incident at a swimming pool in Acton, west London, in 2008."
No where near the full story. If the MET are appealing there is clearly another side.
I would imagine, boy has jumped into pool fully clothed and has either been rescured by lifegaurds and kicked off. or resuced by Police and has kicked off with them because he wanted to be in pool.
Faststraps (Leg restraints) are only used when someone has been cuffed and is still kicking out. I would imagine he was being quite aggressive. Irrespective of disability Police have to restrain people to prevent harm to self and others.
ETA: suffers of autism often become violent when touched. Or if something they want to do is stopped or changed.
I would imagine, boy has jumped into pool fully clothed and has either been rescured by lifegaurds and kicked off. or resuced by Police and has kicked off with them because he wanted to be in pool.
Faststraps (Leg restraints) are only used when someone has been cuffed and is still kicking out. I would imagine he was being quite aggressive. Irrespective of disability Police have to restrain people to prevent harm to self and others.
ETA: suffers of autism often become violent when touched. Or if something they want to do is stopped or changed.
Edited by Silvs on Wednesday 14th March 17:31
I do think the Police were in a difficult situation.
They made the wrong call and used excessive force.
But they were faced with a very difficult situation.
At least they did not refuse to act until specially trained and equipped experts turned up which seems to be the approach now if someone falls in a canal.
I have some experience of Autistic adults through my son in law who manages several Autistic centres. He frequently confirms that he could not allow his clients into a swimming pool whilst anyone else is there because of the severe risk of disruption and injury that would be present.
He is an Ex Guards officer 6'4 and seventeen stone and he would not attempt to resolve such a situation without serious back up. But he is an expert in that field.
That tells me what the Police probably faced.
The responsible adults who allowed this situation to develop are at least as much to blame as the Police.
I am NOT defending the clearly inappropriate response that there seems to have been from the Police.
But our Police cannot be experts in every form of complex medical condition.
They were put on the spot and made the wrong call. No more No less.
They made the wrong call and used excessive force.
But they were faced with a very difficult situation.
At least they did not refuse to act until specially trained and equipped experts turned up which seems to be the approach now if someone falls in a canal.
I have some experience of Autistic adults through my son in law who manages several Autistic centres. He frequently confirms that he could not allow his clients into a swimming pool whilst anyone else is there because of the severe risk of disruption and injury that would be present.
He is an Ex Guards officer 6'4 and seventeen stone and he would not attempt to resolve such a situation without serious back up. But he is an expert in that field.
That tells me what the Police probably faced.
The responsible adults who allowed this situation to develop are at least as much to blame as the Police.
I am NOT defending the clearly inappropriate response that there seems to have been from the Police.
But our Police cannot be experts in every form of complex medical condition.
They were put on the spot and made the wrong call. No more No less.
They were certainly put on the spot, but I'm not at all sure that they actually made the wrong decision.
Having had experience of what it is like to be part of a team trying to restrain a person who is determined not to be restrained I have every sympathy with policemen put in this situation, and unless it could be proven beyond reasonable doubt that they deliberately chose an unsatisfactory way of keeping the teenager safe from himself then the matter should never have got to court AFAIAC.
Mad Dave said:
They've spelt "thank you most graciously for saving our son's life" wrong.
Too right. I know it is difficult but by restraining him they have probably saved him from injuring himself and others. What has been gained, apart from £28k by taking this action? People wonder why police and fire officers stand by and watch people drown, no doubt had they had time to call a risk assessor in to advise them they would have not had a case to answer, however the kid would have been dead.Fort Jefferson said:
Mad Dave said:
They've spelt "thank you most graciously for saving our son's life" wrong.
There is more to this story, but you make a good point.So next time someone is waving a plastic bread-knife and 40 police officers cordon off five streets and begin an eight hour dialogue with the suspect, we know why. Because if they don't perform an on-site psych evaluation, three risk assessments and consult a number of human rights experts before resorting to strong vocals and a stern presence they know they'll be shafted when the case comes to court.
Mad Dave said:
Fort Jefferson said:
Mad Dave said:
They've spelt "thank you most graciously for saving our son's life" wrong.
There is more to this story, but you make a good point.We can all second guess after the emergency.
Dealing with it at the time is the tricky bit.
They were talking about this on radio 5 this morning.
He was on a trip to the pool to see how he handled it, but wasn't swimming.
The pool had a procedure where if anyone was in the pool clothed the police were called, so matey ends up in the pool, lifeguards get him out then police ignore his carer and we end up here.
General opiniion amongst people who deal with autistic people is he should of been left and he would of 'chilled' out and probably left without further incident but trying to make him do something was not advised.
He was on a trip to the pool to see how he handled it, but wasn't swimming.
The pool had a procedure where if anyone was in the pool clothed the police were called, so matey ends up in the pool, lifeguards get him out then police ignore his carer and we end up here.
General opiniion amongst people who deal with autistic people is he should of been left and he would of 'chilled' out and probably left without further incident but trying to make him do something was not advised.
It is enfuriating. Judges, who no doubt spent four weeks coming to their decisions that the police acted wrongly in an active incident, often suggest courses of action that are plainly nonsensical. Mind you, the same goes for discipline and complaints departments, and they are police officers.
If the kid suffered injury then it is right that someone should compensate him for said injuries, but this is punitive.
If they want the police to act in an informed way when dealing with the mentally ill then all they have to do is recruit fully qualified doctors or else train officers for five years. But they don't.
Allowances must be made for the lack of knowledge. Not only that, you could probably ask ten doctors, including specialists in autism, what should be done and you'll get twenty different answers, although none immediately. They'd have to look it up first.
It was splashed all over the papers recently that the fire service refused to wade into water to retrieve a bloke who was patently dead. The procedures that the FB were following were probably written to cope with some decision from a judge on a previous occasion when a FB chap was seriously injured doing something similar. If a judge uses good sense no one notices, he doesn't get promoted nor his name in lights.
Next time some autistic kid is in a swimming pool and the police turn up because people are concerned as to his well-being then they will follow the instructions of this judge and if, as is probable, the kid suffers further injury, I doubt it will be judges who will have to pay out the £30k compensation this second kid will then be awarded.
It's alright for judges. When they make a bad decision and some bloke is locked up because other judges deemed that their summing up was wrong, they have a laugh about it. Or, worse still, when guilty people walk free because of some mistake, do they have to fork out.
I know officers who have been disciplined for errors when, if I had had the limited information available to them at the time, I would have come to the same conclusion. And, oddly enough, would again, despite the discipline. All you can hope is that it works out alright.
There is much more to this than is being reported.
If the kid suffered injury then it is right that someone should compensate him for said injuries, but this is punitive.
If they want the police to act in an informed way when dealing with the mentally ill then all they have to do is recruit fully qualified doctors or else train officers for five years. But they don't.
Allowances must be made for the lack of knowledge. Not only that, you could probably ask ten doctors, including specialists in autism, what should be done and you'll get twenty different answers, although none immediately. They'd have to look it up first.
It was splashed all over the papers recently that the fire service refused to wade into water to retrieve a bloke who was patently dead. The procedures that the FB were following were probably written to cope with some decision from a judge on a previous occasion when a FB chap was seriously injured doing something similar. If a judge uses good sense no one notices, he doesn't get promoted nor his name in lights.
Next time some autistic kid is in a swimming pool and the police turn up because people are concerned as to his well-being then they will follow the instructions of this judge and if, as is probable, the kid suffers further injury, I doubt it will be judges who will have to pay out the £30k compensation this second kid will then be awarded.
It's alright for judges. When they make a bad decision and some bloke is locked up because other judges deemed that their summing up was wrong, they have a laugh about it. Or, worse still, when guilty people walk free because of some mistake, do they have to fork out.
I know officers who have been disciplined for errors when, if I had had the limited information available to them at the time, I would have come to the same conclusion. And, oddly enough, would again, despite the discipline. All you can hope is that it works out alright.
There is much more to this than is being reported.
Derek Smith said:
It is enfuriating.
It was splashed all over the papers recently that the fire service refused to wade into water to retrieve a bloke who was patently dead.
Sorry Derek I disagree. You cannot say he was patently dead. One doctor said he could have survived. Even the hospital Registrar said if he had been removed when first spotted there was chance of survival. It was splashed all over the papers recently that the fire service refused to wade into water to retrieve a bloke who was patently dead.
But no one can tell, because he was simply left there.
This response to that particular drowning from a Canadian who was born in the UK tells it like it is.
'I look at Britain, my native land, the country I was born and educated in, with sadness in my heart.
You are in a perilous state.
You have allowed yourselves to be "Regulated" out of your minds, literally. You have been socially-engineered into being non-thinking servile zombies. How long has this been going on?
Do you ever ask yourselves this question? It wasn't going on in the 70's when I left England. The circumstances of a man drowning in a 3ft deep pond are tragic, but also an insight into a more pernicious social mind-set.
You Brits are regulated every which way you turn. More CCTV cameras than there are people! Wheely bins in the right place at the right time on the right day. And I see no evidence that you are going to wake up and use the mind that your maker gave you. You have surrendered your rights to apply common sense, with hardly a whimper.
Wake up.'
Sums it up.
At least in this case of Simon Burgess (the chap who drowned, probably needlessly) some still adhere to the old values, like the PC first on scene and one of the Paramedics.
PC Tony Jones arrived at the scene on foot very shortly after Mr Burgess fell into the water while feeding the swans.
PC Jones told the inquest:
‘When I spoke to witnesses and found out the body hadn’t been there long I told my sergeant I was willing to go into the water.
‘He authorised me to do so, and I took off my body armour but Mr Nicholls advised me strongly not to go in.
‘I said I would go in anyway and asked if I could borrow his life jacket but he said “No”, but I was going to do it regardless.
It didn’t sit right with me that no one was going to get the body or assist the person in the water.
‘The control room was informed I was going in and they sent a message that under no circumstances could I go in the water.’
So he stands there with no option because he would obviously lose his job had he gone in.
And the same with Paramedic Robert Wallace who was experienced in swimming in white water rafting currents was also refused, despite offering to go in.
What a dreadful situation to be put in for those two men. They still retain their 'common sense' but were refused to use it by those with absolutely 'no sense'!
carmonk said:
So next time someone is waving a plastic bread-knife and 40 police officers cordon off five streets and begin an eight hour dialogue with the suspect, we know why. Because if they don't perform an on-site psych evaluation, three risk assessments and consult a number of human rights experts before resorting to strong vocals and a stern presence they know they'll be shafted when the case comes to court.
The reality is that officers attend thousands of incidents a day and use common sense to resolve those incidents. In the vast majority of cases they make good decisions and resolve the incident. Every now and again they'll either make a bad decision or a good decision that someone else disagrees with. When that happens there's usually a long-forgotten policy to hang them with! Split second decisions, scrutinised at leisure.
Mr_B said:
AndrewW-G said:
It's in the link . . . . .kid was on a familiarisation trip to a pool and jumped in fully clothed.
Even then it still sounds like a large chunk of the story is missingdandarez said:
What a dreadful situation to be put in for those two men. They still retain their 'common sense' but were refused to use it by those with absolutely 'no sense'!
Indeed, though every officer I know would have gone in, regardless of policy. Tell control room and immediately take your radio off to go in, then when you're inevitable b
ked for ignoring their refusal, you can honestly say you didn't hear it. 
All forces are different, but I can't imagine being formally disciplined for wading in in an attempt to save the guys life. Still, you have to respect their situation and their decision can't be critised; it's a disciplined service and they were given an order.
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