Woman with Asperger’s ‘dragged out of cinema for laughing loudly’
A WOMAN with Asperger’s syndrome was ‘dragged’ out of a screening of her favourite film by cinema security guards for laughing too much.
Tamsin Parker was watching The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the BFI cinema on London’s South Bank when audience members complained she was laughing ‘in the wrong places’.
Miss Parker, who was at the screening to celebrate her 25th birthday, said she was ‘devastated’ and ‘humiliated’ after she was ‘forcibly removed’ by security.
She tried to explain that she was autistic but a member of the audience shouted ‘you’re retarded’, while another told her to ‘shut up, b****’.
Some audience members applauded as she was removed from the screening of the violent 1966 western starring Clint Eastwood. But others left the theatre in protest, saying they were ‘shaking with anger’ at her treatment.
Miss Parker, an animation graduate, said she was watching the film with two friends, who are also on the autistic spectrum, when she noticed some audience members were getting annoyed. ‘I realised peosecurity ple were getting annoyed right from when one man shouted, “Shut up, b****”,’ she told the London Evening Standard.
‘I never meant to annoy anyone. I have problems with volume control. I was only trying to enjoy myself.’
She was asked to leave but refused. Two guards grabbed her by the arms and led her to the exit.
‘I was humiliated at being dragged out in front of all those people with the lights up, while I was trying to explain to everyone that I was autistic,’ she said.
Lloyd Shepherd, 51, who was at the screening with his son, said Miss Parker laughed loudly at the ‘amusing bits’, but it was never ‘inappropriate’.
He added: ‘She’d been laughing very loudly but at moments which were supposed to be funny. Some people complained. She was dragged out shouting, “I’m sorry, I have Asperger’s”. She was incredibly upset.’ Another cinema-goer said about 25 people walked out in protest at the way Miss Parker was treated.
The BFI said: ‘We are sincerely sorry to those affected by the incident.
‘In what was a challenging and complex situation, we got it wrong.’
‘I have problems with volume control’