Retarded Youth Charged with “Racism”

Down’s Syndrome teenager with mental age of five charged with racist assault on http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3376

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4009

When Jamie Bauld’s parents were told their teenage son had got into a slight scuffle at college, they were understandably concerned.

But because Jamie has Down’s Syndrome and the Asian girl he argued with also has special needs, they assumed the minor fracas would be dealt with internally.

Instead, however, the pushing and shoving incident sparked a seven-month chain of events with Jamie – who is 18 but with a mental age of about five – being charged with a racist assault.

The charge was dropped this month, and the Crown Office yesterday apologised for their handling of the case.

But Fiona and Jim Bauld have told how they had been through “pure hell” since the September incident.

The couple, from Cumbernauld in Lanarkshire, dismissed the allegation as “nonsense” and described the incident as “like two five-year-olds having an argument”. Mr Bauld said: “It was so ridiculous.

“When we spoke to the procurator fiscal’s office, it was a case of ‘so what?’.

“When we tried explaining, they were not interested.

“It was pure hell for my wife. The whole thing was a nonsense from start to finish.

“Jamie knows who the police are, that they take away bad people, but he didn’t know what was going on.

“He doesn’t understand things like inside and out and whether a door is open or shut.

“When he saw a prison on the television he said “is that where I am going?”.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=560226&in_page_id=1770

2008-04-17