CCTV shows pupils abused and locked in padded room

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨floofloof@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨unitedkingdom@feddit.uk⁩

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjw0e3zjx2lo

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/22497296

Summary

CCTV footage from Whitefield School in London shows autistic children being abused in padded “calming rooms” between 2014-2017, including being shoved, restrained, left in distress, or forced to sit in vomit.

Police investigated but brought no charges, leaving families to cope with trauma. Over 40 children were affected, with some developing PTSD or epilepsy.

Safeguarding investigations revealed six staff members abused students, but they weren’t referred for banning. Parents accuse authorities of a cover-up, while calls grow for stricter regulation of seclusion practices in special schools across the UK.

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Comments

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hate2bme@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No charges? WTF?

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- floofloof@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Apparently it’s OK to beat kids if they’re autistic.
  
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- rubikcuber@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Apparently the video was discovered by new managers after the investigation was halted. Which suggests perhaps a less than thorough investigation.
  
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Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Jesus H. Christ, I immediately thought oh it’s not going to be as bad as it sounds, the. The video does genuinely show it being as bad and worse than it sounds.

I’m autistic, when I get particularly distressed, I’ll end up impulsively hitting my head against walls or with my fist. Generally that behaviour is worse when left alone after getting into that state to begin with. By leaving these kids to actively self harm by isolating them, likely has worsened their situations, and probably has caused the epilepsy in the one child to become apparent.

My partner is a teaching assistant at a mainstream school which takes on a huge number of SEN children, mostly autistic, about 5 with down syndrome, and recently a lot who were fostered. They would never in a million years think that anything like what’s shown in the video is acceptable, it’s genuinely heartbreaking that this has occured, let alone that noone is being held accountable for this abuse.

There’s got to be so many better ways of helping these kids when they’re distressed instead of just throwing them into what is effectively a padded cell.

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Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Only fair to lock the teacher in a room with the parents for the same duration. See how much calmer they come out.

London pays nearly a THIRD (28%) of their budget to police as of this year.

Police are demanding that figure go up another £60 million to £190MM on average for the next 3 years.

And what do they want to spend it on?

More staff, including officers, costing about $14 million. Police are proposing to hire 97 officers and 92 civilian members over four years.

A new training centre and headquarters renovations costing $80.8 million from 2024-27 and another $123.9 million from 2028-33.

A second armoured vehicle costing $492,000.

A new remote piloted aircraft system, or drone, and a vehicle to transport it, costing $466,000 from 2025-27.

An incident command vehicle costing $351,900 in 2025.

Electric vehicles costing about $2 million from 2024-28

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