Written by When a young autistic man in Bristol was shot with a police stun gun and charged with assaulting an officer, it looked like a textbook case – until CCTV footage emerged that told a different story . The charges collapsed, and the police watchdog criticised officers for hiding the video and urged disability-awareness training . This alarming incident is not isolated. Across the UK, systemic police corruption and misconduct are disproportionately harming neurodivergent individuals – those with autism, ADHD, learning disabilities and other cognitive differences – who find themselves misinterpreted or mistreated by the very authorities meant to protect them.
An Unsafe Police Culture
The backdrop to these cases is a policing culture marred by misconduct. A damning 2022 inspection found officers with criminal records or links to organised crime had “slipped through the vetting net” and joined police ranks . The same report concluded that “a culture of misogyny, sexism, [and] predatory behaviour… was prevalent in many – if not all – forces” . In London alone, investigations are under way into roughly 800 Met Police officers over 1,000 sexual and domestic abuse claims . Such corruption and abuse within police forces create a toxic environment for any citizen; for neurodivergent people, the dangers are even greater.
Officers untrained in neurodiversity may mistake a person’s disability-related behaviors – such as an autistic individual avoiding eye contact or an ADHD individual’s fidgeting – as suspicious or defiant. In the worst cases, corrupted officers exploit that vulnerability. The Bristol taser case is a stark example: police claimed the autistic man “pushed” an officer, justifying force, when in fact the video proved he hadn’t . “If [my son] had been found guilty on the basis of their evidence, he would have been sent to prison,” the man’s mother said, outraged at how close an innocent disabled person came to incarceration .
Neurodivergent Victims of Misconduct
Sadly, many neurodivergent people have suffered wrongful arrests, excessive force, or neglect in custody. Disability advocates recount “numerous stories [of] neurodivergent people being wrongfully arrested, assaulted, or even killed in custody” over the years . Without proper training, officers can misread autistic distress as aggression or ignore an epileptic episode as non-compliance. In 2018, a Hertfordshire teenager with autism was restrained face-down by police during a meltdown; he later described the experience as terrifying and unnecessary. In other cases, individuals with learning disabilities have been questioned without an appropriate adult or medical help, leading to false confessions or escalated encounters. The pattern is clear: lack of understanding, compounded by abusive policing practices, produces injustice.
Neurodivergent people are further put at risk by police who put self-protection above public service. Whistleblowers from within forces have exposed officers falsifying statements to cover up misconduct, as in the Bristol case. In other instances, families of autistic individuals who died in police custody have struggled to get the truth amid internal stonewalling. Each example deepens the mistrust. “If police forces harbour dangerous individuals and ignore disability awareness, the outcome is a double injustice,” warns the Cease and Desist disability rights campaign – “those meant to protect instead inflict harm, and victims with neurological differences are further marginalised.”
Demanding Accountability and Reform
Turning this tide will require systemic reform in policing. Advocates call for mandatory neurodiversity training for all officers – so that an autistic person rocking or a deaf person’s lack of verbal response isn’t misinterpreted as suspicious. Police leadership must also root out abusive officers more aggressively: the vetting failures identified in 2022 show urgent improvement is needed . Every officer facing credible misconduct allegations – including those involving excessive force or prejudice against disabled people – should be suspended and investigated, not left in post. Crucially, transparency is key. Campaigners urge that incidents involving neurodivergent individuals be reviewed by independent watchdogs to ensure corruption or bias is exposed. Body-camera footage and station CCTV must be preserved and disclosed, so cases like the Bristol taser cover-up cannot happen again.
The government has acknowledged the problem in part. Following public outrage over high-profile police abuses, inquiries into police culture are under way. Some forces have introduced autism liaison officers or mental health training modules. But disability advocates say these steps are fragmented and insufficient. Without strong accountability – criminal prosecutions of officers who abuse their power, and leadership that truly prioritises vulnerable people’s safety – neurodivergent Brits will remain fearful of calling the police even when they’re in need.
For now, people like the Bristol mother cling to the hope that shining a light on these failures will spur change. Her son’s case prompted an Independent Office for Police Conduct investigation and disability-awareness lessons for the officers involved . It’s a start. Trust, however, will take much longer to rebuild. As families of neurodivergent victims demand, British policing must prove – through actions, not words – that it can dispense justice fairly to all citizens. Until then, the very citizens who most need protection will continue to feel unprotected and unsafe.
Sources: Police vetting failures have allowed ‘predatory’ officers to join up, watchdog finds ; Bristol man with autism shot by police with stun gun
Please consult me on this .
My 17 year old Autistic Son is currently facing criminal charges after a catastrophic chain of events and negligent practice by emergency service workers led to him having an autistic meltdown on top of his acutely unwell presentation. A Police Officer who had been told he was Autistic went into his room, shut the door, applied a pain response manouevre when my Son was laying on his bed and when my Son reacted badly he PAVA sprayed him without mandatory warning. What followed was 3 Police Officers pushing him to the ground, handcuffing him behand his back and dragging him outside. Despite raising a complaint to PSD, the Officer was still able to have management of his case, information has gone missing and requests unfulfilled. Nobody appears to be able to help us with getting acknowledgement of how badly he was treated leading to his meltdown and reaction. The IOPC have upheld a complaint I made and within days I was told the case had been pushed through CPS, far too coincidental as my complaint has yet to be reinvestigated. The Officer was informally reprimanded for his lack of transparency in his Statement, not disclosing his abusive language and aggressive approach to my Son whilst in the shut room. Had I not raised a complaint with Professional Standards I would never have found out what happened to my Son in that room.
The Police waited until exactly one week after my Son’s 18th Birthday to notify me and covering up they had not fulfilled the Youth Offending Team’s requests from 5 months prior, telling me the request had never been made and completely gaslighting me. This is being reinvestigated by the Police Officer already has his vengeance. We are one very scared family. I work for the NHS as a frontline worker, I don’t condone physical aggression but this was not my Son’s fault. Despite knowing he was Autistic and being told what he didn’t cope well with, the Officer completely ignored us and made negative comments that were caught on his body worn video. I still struggle to find the words to describe his dreadful it was and how ashamed I am of the emergency services I work alongside. Yet nobody can help us gain acknowledgement and just investigation. There is more that happened to him, this is the main part. I am searching high and low, we have a Solicitor for the criminal charges again him but I am a single parent on an NHS wage who cannot work full time as I am also a full time carer, I am on my knees and have no idea where I will find anyone to at least listen. I have no idea where I will find the money for the next part of the proceedings. I ask myself is this how we treat young people in crisis in our country now? It is shameful. How many other families have been put through the same or similar experiences.
We have had a similar experience
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Canary in the coal mine. This metaphorical concept of who will suffer visibly from a toxic environment first, explains how autistic people, especially young men, are treated. I can’t stand it when Feminists push the narrative that females ALWAYS are the biggest victims in ANY scenario. They push this narrative in the Autism sphere these days and in my experience it just isn’t true. The police don’t tend to presume to escalate then physically abuse females, for example. When I was being abused by my own ND family during lockdown, they didn’t send a kind, compassionate officer, they sent a skinhead tooled up with a taser, and didn’t apply domestic violence training, allowing the abusers to control the narrative. Then shamed me for not working (austerity scrounger narrative), and by taking advantage of my naive nature and ignoring the fact that I was fleeing.domestic abuse elsewhere during lockdown, tried to fit me up for benefit fraud, instead of help me, the victim. Facts: I underclaimed benefit hugely for decades whilst suffering undiagnosed cPTSD and living with Autism and ADHD and resulting narcissistic abuse from my ignorant family who self-hate their own ND traits and internalise the shame whilst scapegoating me. The police then referred me to social services without my consent, who were worse than useless as they referred me to an outsourced service “that’s all we can offer you” which was controlled in part by one of my.abusers! I still haven’t recovered and now fear the police since I was completely non-violent and only acted in self-defence when chased physically by people manipulated by narcissistic abusers (undiagnosed ND maladapted to this).
So where is justice? The Tories decided to make a access to legal self-defence yet another privilege for the rich when they cut legal aid under austerity. Which you lying Labour scumbags, has NOT ended, never went away, and we don’t vote for democratic representation, we are dictated to by bankers via debt-slavery. Who impose Austerity as part of the conditions for lending that imaginary money. The right to a fair trial and due process is rooted in Habeas Corpus (undermined by the War on Terror, possibly the whole point in the first place as is an 800-year-old tradition since the Magna Carta). Join some dots, see the patterns of behaviour for who is REALLY in charge. Police that fear and oppress anyone.different to the brainwashed masses, is definitely part of the picture, Autistic or not. Since the pandemic, they force-changed the Android and iOS operating systems of smartphones, to automatically track and trace who you associate with, not (IMHO) to help protect you, no, but to prevent people politically organising in SECRET (the only effective way). This fact, along with the other removal of freedoms since 2001 point to a pattern where a severe repression is planned, and slowly slowly they’ve been undermining any potential ability to EFFECTIVELY resist. Look at what Edward Snowden has been saying about mass surveillance. I realised this since 25 years ago, since being NeuroDivergent means I am a target for oppression and we notice its hallmarks even if most people are happily deluded.
Notice how everything has been pushed to a dehumanising email-only online-only, cloud-based system since the pandemic? This is a significant part of the method – email is NOT encrypted so can be spied-upon far more.efficiently by Government and others. They want your human right to privacy GONE! Freedom is just too much risk to their business model, basically. Nothing to do with protecting you from terrorism, really (e.g. the London Bridge attackers were known to anti-terror police but the corrupt-logic insistence upon mass surveillance instead of real policing meant they didn’t have the one extra officer needed to follow the suspect on the day of the attack). Yet then the police can come terrorise your home… Oh and now they come out with this ‘Adolescence’ anti-male, Autism-victim-blaming, scapegoating propaganda that Keir Starmer is ignorantly promoting (establishment ex-head of CPS so go figure what masters he serves).
Good luck, you’ll need it. Also, I am peaceful, too – but EVERYONE has a human right to self-defence. So do consider the limitations of your not condoning physical aggression. All political power comes from the barrel of a gun, so who tacitly needs to insist upon a monopoly on physical aggression, by the state? Yeah… Hypocrisy is guaranteed to cause conflict and since the system is refusing to renounce its hypocrisy, expect them to insist upon disarming their enemy. Oppressive systems create enemies unnaturally. Fascism is being promoted – and abusers of mine were thinking and acting like fascists, so I started to realise this around the early 1990s! The great Ska-Punk band Fishbone have a song called.’Subliminal Fascism’ from the early 1980s, I believe. That was Reagan-Thatcherite times, and Thatcherite policy never really left the UK and we are only now dealing with the legacies of that, like ‘Care in the Community’ and no proper mental health provision, a housing crisis and privatisation.
National monopoly infrastructure industries causing massive problems. So there you go – a few dots to join.
Oh and sorry for the lack of empathy in my last post, it’s a hard time of year for those estranged from family. Bless you for caring for yours and hope you got legal help to an effective level. It is part of the Social Model of Disability, the rigging of society and the system against certain demographics.
I am really angry and saddened to hear about these terrible experiences. Is there any update you’d like to share? I am sending a prayer for justice and healing. These incidents should never happen
Hi. I am an autistic woman who was labelled a criminal for my autistic traits. Most of my initial offences happened when I was under 18. They waited until I was 18 to take them to court. I was convicted as an adult which means I now have the criminal label for life. Offences were things like harassment etc. I was sectioned & sent to a secure unit. Later I went to residential care after up to the age of 22. I communicated via written word. I still do. I can talk but social anxiety / ptsd impacts verbal communication a lot. I turned to professionals & wanted to be their friends. This is what got me labelled. They pushed me away & because my home life was full of emotional neglect I said a lot of wrong things that get constantly misinterpreted. I was a youngster craving love but only was given the opposite via various authorities. Due to my label I’ve lost so much in life. I was never allowed a career and as soon as I disclose my history to anywhere I’m rejected. I tried to speak out after I left the residential home via a book I self published (it is now no longer available because I had to shelve it due to the attacks I got for what I said in it). I found a load of lies on official records about me that I cannot change unless I have the money to challenge the authorities in court, I would have never known about this information if I hadn’t had a child. I ended up on a child protection plan pre birth and lost my son to adoption due to the misinformation. I was forced to live with the parent that caused my problems on that plan or they threatened to take him at birth. I have tried to turn to many people to get the truth out for many years since losing my son & all I got was more accusations, a restraining order & constant police hassle. After being accused of stalking & malicious communications last year… at 38 years old I’m now experiencing full on cptsd symptoms and are fearful to even go out much. I no longer socialise or really communicate with people in the outside world. I’m always shakey & I’m still dealing with the neglectful parent who caused my issues initially. Luckily I live in my own flat away from them but I have no one else because the outside world mistreated me & rejected me. I talk about my experiences on TikTok but with the rise of police arresting people for social media stuff I’m starting to get too fearful to do that. I live in fear so much that I constantly feel sick with anxiety. Every time I’ve tried to get help in the past I’ve been referred to forensic services due to my autistic behaviours being labelled criminal. I don’t get seen for who I am. I have been treated with contempt and cruelty my entire life, even by support services because of how I was framed from a young age. I’m stuck in the area I grew up in that mistreated me because there’s no way out with circumstances & cost of living at the moment. I don’t see a future & many of those in the same position as myself have taken their own lives. The mental toll it takes to live with the injustice, the way relatives issues make you feel & knowing that you’re stuck in this position can be too much for most. I’ve developed physical conditions like arthritis so the stress has internally got to me.