Published on 12, July, 2020
The first report on the BBC news tonight was about the awful stabbing of the 15 year old Holly Newton and the mention that the killer had autism. But this is just inflammatory, is it not? They did exactly the same regarding the Southport killings (there's a separate thread about that in this forum). But it doesn't take much for an ill-informed public to make the leap that people who commit awful crimes are autistic. Or that autistic people are likely to commit such crimes. Yes of course a tiny percent of people with autism commit heinous crimes just as there are a tiny percent of neurotypicals who do too. But what is the reason for reporting that the boy was autistic? I wonder, would they mention that a killer was of a different race or gender or physically disabled so readily?
They rarely mention the gender of the killers, since it's usually accepted that men kill women. At quite an alarming rate. Across the UK, one every 3 days apparently (Fix the System not the Women by Laura Bates). But it's OK, they are 'isolated incidents', usually perpetrated by someone known to the victim rather than a serial killer targeting people randomly. Allegedly this is supposed to reassure us that we are safe.
I am guessing the defence tried to use his male, stereotypical presentation of autism to help the jury understand that some of his behaviour is different from theirs to trigger their sympathy. Since they were both under 18 at the time, I wonder why the killer's parents were not called in as character witnesses in this article, the same way the dead teen's mother was. Why the victim has to be seen as the perfect daughter, student, friend before we get outraged at her murder, and here we are, picking out one part of the murderer's defence to be outraged at. He is the one who brought it up claiming it part of his defence, otherwise who would know....?
I notice that people are more outraged that there is the possibility that an autistic person has killed someone rather than a man has killed a woman. Most murders are committed by men. It's a fact so boring and normal that it isn't mentioned any more. We know that most violent crimes are committed by men. The only way the press can sensationalise it to get readers is to find something about the man to report on, hence a mention of his autism diagnosis. But that's OK as 'boys will be boys', 'he just snapped', 'he was blinded by rage'.
Fiona said:I notice that people are more outraged that there is the possibility that an autistic person has killed someone rather than a man has killed a woman. Most murders are committed by men. It's a fact so boring and normal that it isn't mentioned any more.
Please don't make assumptions that I'm not outraged about men killing women. I was an active member of women's groups back in the 1980s. The outrage is for the conflation of autism with male violence. It certainly wasn't necessary to mention his autism in the headlines and give a distorted and headline-grabbing view of autism to an already misinformed public. You only need subsitute 'black' or 'gay' and you would see why those communities would be rightly outraged. That is not saying that no black men nor gay men commit murder. But to announce it in the headlines is inflammatory