Published on 12, July, 2020
Our son Aran was moved to a secure unit from a closed secure unit today. We had 20 minutes notice of this. We manged to get a lawyer to revoke our section 25 but it had been superseeded. He was violent i n the closed unit as he has ASD ADD and wanted to come home. If he was a prisoner of war he would get medals for bravery but I do not condone violence. It showed me his spirit was unbroken. My husband and I have a family lawyer but because we did not know he was being moved today and found out only accidently by phoning the unit to talk to Aran- we were 50 minutes too late in revoking our section 25 and we could have taken Aran home. He is now locked away. We agreed to the close secure unit for assessment purposes only. We had no idea they would/could do this. We need a lawyer in Glasgow for our son. A hearing is on Tuesday. We have not even the paperwork to prepare. We are a loving family with no criminal background, in fact I was a SEN teacher and my husband is a professor at university. Our son has been transitioned without story boards, without us being allowed to encourage him, without his consent or understanding. We need to hire a lawyer. Aran wants to come home and we want him home. We have no experience of the law and need to move fast on this. We have 3 other children who are devestated. Aran did not know the consequence of his violent behaviour. We were to take him home tomorrow and the last two days saw a peaceful interactive boy who came out of his bedroom. He had withdrawn himself into his room for most of the day. Staying in bed. A child in deep despair. We are in a crisis of a nightmare level. So any one that can help direct us to the best child lawyer in Scotland please
It feels like Jeremy - Beth's dad had an amazing team. How lucky is Beth to have a parent like that. When S.W. were reading out statements that came from the closed unit, we had to immediately dispute many of the points as false or misleading or exaggerated. We were stunned by the untruths. We believed in an honest process. It is not. That frightens me because it shows me they have the power and lack of principles to be unjust in even the basic reports. Stephen and I looked at eachother and a whole new realisation came to us instantly. This was never intended to be a fair shot. There is so much work to do and trying to get Aran to contribute when he is in the middle of a new and sudden transition, is really unfair on an ASD kid.
I am sure you have already seen this Scottish Parliament publication on ASD; here's a link just in case you have not: www.parliament.scot/.../SB_17-23_Autism_Spectrum_Disorder.pdf
Printing it out.