One of the joys (& stresses, of course) of @FreeFromFearUK’s work is our role supporting British soldiers & officers who are working to achieve the evacuation of their former 🇦🇫 interpreters. We have been honoured to have acted as the bridging link for many of these fine people.
It meant we could receive messages like this from them when they finally achieved their end goal.
At the moment many of the people we have helped are still stuck in Pakistan in hotels, because the government are no longer willing to offer UK hotels as reception accommodation.
They are OK with really expensive Pakistan hotels though (the Daily Mail can’t get to those).
Others are still in Afghanistan, and we are working to help them get out.
We have a fantastic resettlement team and we are part of the UK charity coalition; we support the Afghans we have helped to come here.
Yesterday’s thread went viral, with lots of questions and commentary about speaking to people who have a diagnosis of autism (and lots of people with autism commenting too) so I put together a thread based on the toolkit on planning to question someone with an ASD 👇
Remember everyone is different so if you’re applying this to your loved one, you know them best, adapt it to suit the way you are used to them engaging (and their interests).
The toolkits are generic but repeatedly refers to the need for an individualistic approach.
In order for people with autism to communicate effectively you need to identify their needs as well as the best environment for them and you should be ready to be flexible.
Some question types carry a high risk of misunderstanding or producing unreliable answers.
Me: no you need to use the vulnerable witness toolkit and go to the section on cross examining young children
Husband: give over?
Me: seriously, watch this
*demonstrates*
Child: *tells me all about day*
OK given lots of parents would like these tips and it’s actually lovely to hear your little one chatter away about their day, I’ll give you some prompt questions to try out in this thread
The below is a plan for a very little child aged 4-6
Use headlines to signpost to the child about the topic, so if you want to know about lunch, tell them you’re going to talk about lunch at school today.
1. Use happy engaging modulation 2. Ask e.g. did you eat potato for lunch
🏛️ A day in the life of a criminal barrister and parent 🏛️
0000hrs: up reading briefs, checking which Judge, putting notes on DCS, preparing cases for morning, reading evidence and making notes of key dates, drafting submissions. Ensure school bags ready.
0100hrs or later - 😴
0550hrs: up with children, get up, get suit on, get them fed and ready for school
0750hrs: leave for school. On way speak to instructing solicitor on largest case of the day to try to understand evidential gaps in served evidence as it is a new case
0815hrs: telephone call with officer in the case while children interrupt with “mummy what’s an uzi?” “mummy what’s a nine bar?” Drop children off at school
0850hrs: stop for coffee (in drive through). Get to court. More calls, this time with defence solicitors for def cases.
Arrived at court at 0850 with first hearing at 10. Did not stop case after case. Serious cases piled up on top of one another, covering for others held up elsewhere, constantly apologising to judges. All of us in the same boat. Tired, feet hurt, no time for breaks or water.
There just aren’t enough of us to go around anymore and all of us pass one another with grim, fixed, tired but sympathetic expressions on our faces. How much longer can we all go on like this?
For all its talk of protesting against refugee paedophiles, the far right has long been a hotbed of sex offenders.
List [not exhaustive]:
Robert Ewing, who murdered schoolgirl Paige Chivers after developing an “inappropriate sexual interest” in her, was later prosecuted for abusing 2 other children in the 1990s. In 2013, Ewing wrote on Facebook, “Iv taken an interest in the EDL and iv attended a couple of demo’s.”
Leigh Mcmillan, a senior EDL figure during Steven Yaxley-Lennon’s time as leader, who was active in the Lee Rigby campaign, was sentenced to 17 years after abusing a 10 year-old schoolgirl 100 times in the mid-1990s. [picture: @hopenothate]