Disability discrimination ?

Greetings. Another example of "spin" (Dictonary definition is: "a particular bias, interpretation, or point-of-view, intended to create a favourable or unfavourable impression when presented to the public.") ...Replace the term "Autism" with "Black" and the same negative-associations would occur...

...but can anyone here answer that MAIN question? To do with The LAW...??

Robert124 said:

an example of disability discrimination or even breach of confidentiality?  By mentioning the person is autistic.

Greetings. Another example of "spin" (Dictonary definition is: "a particular bias, interpretation, or point-of-view, intended to create a favourable or unfavourable impression when presented to the public.") ...Replace the term "Autism" with "Black" and the same negative-associations would occur...

...but can anyone here answer that MAIN question? To do with The LAW...??

Robert124 said:

an example of disability discrimination or even breach of confidentiality?  By mentioning the person is autistic.

In my second to last job the one that caused my nervous breakdown my manager would bring people to take notes of our conversation wich I found really intimidating by itself and he would say oh I told them your autistic and say but they don't have to be here if you don't want, and he did this with about five people I worked with and I didn't want anyone of them to know firstly I was autistic secondly that I was being put on a performance improvement plan and the intricacies of how I was failing I just felt so stupid explaining why I found it difficult to do something again and again in front of my colleagues until it felt like I was making excuses, looking back the whole experience really destroyed me as a person took away my self confidence, all because I wasn't the right fit and being asked do I think it's fair on my colleagues that I work here making things difficult for them. 

I will attempt to answer your point but I do not endorse what the Daily Mail has written in any way.

The paper has said that he has autism.  That is fact.  To show discrimination someone would have to prove this was said to imply autistic people inevitably or in many cases have a tendency to commit crime and were therefore not safe.

The argument from the DM would be that his autism had meant that he needed carers and he had comorbid mental health conditions.  They would argue that in this case, because of his known interview in which he stated his intention to throw someone from a height he should have been under supervision.  Their point would be that they were referring to the way autism affected this individual in a unique way, not that this applied to a group of individuals.  And in this case it was therefore justified in order to put the facts and to show that autism sometimes can lead to irrational  and was not implying that autism inevitably leads to such behaviour.

Myself I felt very uneasy that it mentioned that he was autistic.  But a court would have to be convinced that this was intended to stir up discrimination because of his autism, rather than the way he acted.  I also believe his autism was also mentioned in the court proceedings which I think would make any discrimination case or breech of confidentiality very unlikely to succeed.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act/protected-characteristics

This is a link to the protected characteristics as defined by the 2010 equality act.

It may help answer the question of whether autism should have been mentioned in the news item.