Mate crime is happening now

This is a true story from an autism professional.  It describes how a vulnerable young man with Asperger’s syndrome is being manipulated by a violent gang. Names, locations and other identifying features have been changed.

Chaz has Aspergers syndrome.  He is in his early 20s and is a well brought up and polite young man who lives with his grandparents.

Chaz’s autism is not immediately obvious and on first meeting he appears street-wise and capable, but within a short time it becomes clear that he has difficulty with issues such as the value and source of money, the reasoning behind rules and regulations, boundaries when dealing with individuals in terms of language, proximity, personal space and so on.

Chaz is a keen football fan and supporting his team is very important to him. He will tell you that he has lots of “friends” who attend matches with him and he will very quickly admit to drinking lots and then looking for fights with opposition fans and that this is the normal thing to do as a football fan.

He has been in trouble with the police on a number of occasions and tries to convince anyone who will listen that he is proud of this and to have been in trouble at the match is a mark of success. It’s very easy to see that Chaz doesn’t really believe this, but just thinks this is how it should be. His “friends” are much older than him and encourage this behaviour in him. He feels he is part of the gang and grown up by taking part.

He is a polite, kind, gentle and generous young man who is vulnerable and very much younger than his years – violence or criminal behaviour does not match his character as we know him. Very recently Chaz appeared in court charged with fighting and inciting football violence alongside one of his “friends”.  We attended this court case in support of Chaz and he was fortunately found not guilty. His “friend” was found guilty and banned from football as well as being given a heavy fine. We had hoped this would be a wake-up call for Chaz and he would turn away from this group of  people who were bad news for him, but after the initial relief of the not guilty verdict Chaz was immediately targeted by another “friend” recently released from prison.

We suspect this “friend” has taken, or stolen,  small personal items which are important to Chaz in order to bully, control and keep him close so that he can then be used in some doubtful activities. Chaz has already taken delivery of a package of unknown contents to his house  for his “friend”. He finds it difficult to believe that someone he thinks of as a friend would do anything so underhand and often refuses to talk about it although he will still tell the story almost as a cry for help, but then become defensive when the “friend’s” motives are questioned.

There is no end to this story and we are growing increasingly concerned that Chaz will end up in prison in the long term, having been taken advantage of by so-called “mates”.

Update: We can report that Chaz has now been allocated a named social worker. This should mean that some action can be taken to protect him from the so-called friends; it will also mean that if the police become aware of the activities of the friends, and Chaz is implicated in any way, then he should be protected from criminal proceedings.