Parents’ fury as autistic son, 5, is ‘tethered like animal’ to school chair
AN autistic boy of five was ‘ tethered like an animal’ to a chair at school, his horrified parents revealed yesterday.
They had become concerned that their previously ‘placid’ son had begun suffering panic attacks and night terrors – but could not tell them what was happening because he is non-verbal.
It was only when he drew their attention to a scrapbook sent home by teachers at his special school that they saw pictures of him restrained in a chair at the waist and ankles, while other pupils could sit and play freely.
after reportedly being denied an apology by the school, which is in Northern Ireland, they have asked police to investigate allegations he has suffered cruelty.
The unnamed boy’s mother said: ‘Our son was tethered like an animal. He’s a placid little boy, all his assessments show that. He is physically fit and active with some challenging behaviour but there’s never been a need to restrain him. Those chairs are made for children who need to be elevated and angled to the right position, not our son.’
she added: ‘ Our son is autistic and non- verbal but until this started happening he’d always been happy and cheerful and very easy company. Quite suddenly his personality changed and for the best part of a year we were going rapidly downhill.’
The parents said he began refusing to get down from his chair at the dining table and stopped wanting to be held or cuddled.
The couple – who have two older children – said their son’s psychiatrist subsequently told them he had been ‘conditioned’ to stay sitting on a chair because of what had happened at school.
The mother explained she only discovered what was happening earlier this year when she was looking through the scrapbook with her son. ‘I was talking away to him and asking him what he wanted to show me, and he just kept touching the book,’ she told Belfast Live.
‘I started looking very closely at the photos and my heart just started racing. It was there in plain sight, my wee man strapped into a chair by his ankles. I felt sick, it was like the fog lifted.’
she added it was a ‘ matter of abuse of trust and I believe abuse of my son physically’.
The parents contacted the school and a social worker, saying they had never given permission for staff to restrain their son, who is now seven. social services reportedly made a complaint to police and wrote to his psychiatrist expressing fears he had ‘suffered wilful or neglectful failure to prevent injury and suffering’.
But the mother said the school told them ‘ they’d just wanted to keep him safe’ and did not offer an apology or assurance it wouldn’t happen again.
The parents have now complained to the local education authority, and police are investigating.
‘They broke his spirit and he couldn’t fight them but thank goodness he managed to let us know through the very books the school sent home,’ his mother added.
His father said they were forced to ‘wean’ their son from sitting on a chair at home at all times.
after home-schooling him for a while, he is now with a different teacher and making good progress.
But the parents are angry that their complaints weren’t acted upon and are now taking legal action. Their lawyer, kevin Winters, said: ‘This child has suffered emotionally and the concern is that that emotional suffering will have impacted on his education and to that end, his human rights are engaged.’
Northern Ireland’s Education authority said it could not comment ‘to protect the confidentiality of the child’. The National association of Head Teachers said the school principal was ‘complying fully with the investigation’.
‘They broke his spirit’