hi,
my son started college last year after being home educated, due to school refusal and high anxiety in social settings.
He managed to attend college controlling his anxiety using various strategies and was doing amazing well.
until an incident involving my son and the security guards at college, whilst using the accessible toilets, he was falsely accused of smoking cannabis, 4 security guards confronted him coming out of the toilet and questioned him about the suspicious smell,
which I must express again my son would never do this, he hadn’t recognised the smell, he thought it was possibly alcohol gel or cleaning product,
they took his name and ID, whilst blocking his exit, repeatedly asking him had he been smoking in there and threatened him it was illegal and they could call the police.
My son was desperately trying to figure out what was happening and how to respond he told them it wasn’t him and he did manage to tell them he suffers with anxiety, he was struggling to talk so didn’t tell them he’s autistic, I believe they completely miss read his body language and dismissed this information.
he asked to call me, he thought he was going to be arrested, at this point they said he could go although the accounts differ at this point as to what actually happened,
this resulted in my son running out of the college, unable to breath properly having a panic attack, he’s never left the College grounds before, resulting in me driving whilst he was on the phone trying to calm him down until I got there.
Ive has an email from the college as a result of our complaint of how the situation was handled and the response was very unsympathetic and defending the security guards actions,
so I've escalated the complaint further, but no one has contacted me, after yet another an email and phone call, still no response as yet.
does anyone have any advice, how can I get them to understand the impact this has had on my son and us as a family, they don’t seem to have taken our complaint seriously.
