Held in solitary for days – and restrained by groups of men

WHEN Carla was sectioned shortly after her 14th birthday, she had a few small cuts on her body, having imitated some images of self-harm she had seen on the internet.

Today she is covered in scars after more than two years trapped in the child mental health system.

She has slashed her body repeatedly with blades, swallowed pens and wedged metal items in wounds to worsen them. She has a long scar from a botched operation to remove hair grips and staples stuffed in her arm, despite being in the supposed sanctuary of secure hospitals.

Carla has autism. And like so many girls with this condition sent into such units, she mimics others around her in an attempt to fit in and relieve the daily stresses of living in a challenging and chaotic environment.

She has also been forcibly restrained by groups of men, had support staff ignore her banging her head against a wall, and been held in seclusion for days on end, with her food dumped on the floor as if she were an animal.

She is also 4st heavier, the legacy of inactivity inside institutions and poor diet, which only serves to fuel her anxieties. ‘It is like being sent to Bedlam,’ says her mother, Anna, 48, who works in local government.

‘You are so relieved the day they are sectioned because you think they are finally going to be helped and their problems made better. But then you can’t find out what is really happening – and parents are made to feel they are to blame when they are only fighting to do the best for their children. It is a hidden scandal in this country.’

Carla displayed traits of autism from a young age, including an obsessive focus on computers and art. ‘When you look back, she was a classic case study of autism,’ says Anna. ‘But it was never diagnosed.’

Problems started to mount when Carla hit puberty aged 11 as friends drifted away and she felt isolated. Two years later, she cut her arm in a cry for help at school, where she had been on track for top grades. ‘We didn’t know what to do,’ admits Anna.

Even after being referred to child mental health services, there was no recognition the core problem was autism – as so often happens with girls. One supposed expert simply suggested putting an elastic band on her wrist to twang at times of stress.

Then came a suicide attempt, which led to sectioning. Since then she has been held in five units, even being sent briefly to one 300 miles from her home on the South Coast.

At one site, a staff member threatened Carla with a criminal record that would make her unemployable, leading the struggling teenager to attempt suicide again.

‘This is child neglect by the state,’ says Anna. ‘It feels so scary because my daughter has become institutionalised and is now conditioned to seek medical attention at times of stress.

‘Her needs have been missed, and she ended up i n unaccountable hospitals, miles from home, which use inadequately trained agency staff to look after our most vulnerable children.

‘None of them understood autism, although t here are some really great staff doing their best in difficult circumstances.’

Last week, Carla was finally moved from a secure hospital to a specialist residential unit, giving her family hope that the worst of their ordeal might be over.

‘We thought getting a bed in a hospital would be the start of her recovery,’ says her mother. ‘ We were wrong. Our daughter is broken and we are broken.’