Story Thirty - More Spin

Here's another example of the dreadful spin that Hillingdon used to demonise Steven, from their court statement:

"Whilst being supported to participate in community activities, a number of incidents drew attention to members of the public. These included an incident in a local post office that resulted in a member of the public felt inclined to call the police. This incident placed the support workers in a vulnerable position and the involvement of the police increased Steven's already high levels of anxiety".

What on earth did Steven do that day in the post office?

Remember the shift leader who sent Steven and the support workers on the "task completion" trip to the chemist. Well, on this particular day she sent them to the post office to get some milk for the unit. She also gave the support workers strict instructions that Steven mustn't get anything for himself whilst he was there.

So, they got to the shop and Steven wanted some crisps. Abiding my orders, the support workers tried to get him out of the shop without crisps. There were three very drunk people outside the shop, who got it into their heads that the support workers were kidnapping Steven. They tried to pull Steven away from his support workers and one of them called the police.

The guys managed to release themselves and started to walk back to the Unit. Steven was still screaming. The three drunks followed them all the way down the road and kept trying to pull Steven away. One of the support workers phoned the Unit for assistance but nobody answered the phone.

They got back to the Unit but two of the drunks blocked the gate. No staff from the Unit came out to help. The support worker phoned his manager, who drove over quickly to intervene.

How I have presented it here was exactly how the story was told to me at the time by both the support workers and the Unit manager. However, when the same story appeared in their court statement 10 months later, the emphasis became that Steven caused the incident by his challenging behaviour. After a couple of months, all ideas of support went out of the window and Hillingdon turned into litigation mode.

Where is Steven in that story?