It seems to me, with increasing regularity, that the media are focusing on the rare and occasional crimes committed by people with Asperger's Syndrome and as a result, are totally blowing them out of proportion, thus creating or fuelling a myth that individuals with the condition are violent or criminals or have the propensity to be so. Why would they do that? Sells newspapers dunnit.
In December 2008, a sixteen-and-a-half year old murder mystery was finally solved and laid to rest. On Wednesday 15th July 1992, a 23-year-old woman, Rachel Nickell, was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common with her son nearby. In August 1993, a 30-year-old self-confessed loner, Colin Stagg, who admitted he preferred the company of his pet dogs to humans (In many ways I prefer the company of dogs to humans, they are more honest, loyal and less two-faced. You can also trust them more!), was charged with Rachel Nickell's murder, and spent 13 months on remand, before the case was thrown out at the Old Bailey in September 1994. As a result, Colin Stagg was cleared.
The police believed Colin Stagg was the murderer because he was a loner. He painted the walls of his flat black and owned a sheath knife, books on the occult and pictures of naked women, which is certainly odd. However, just because someone is a loner doesn't mean that they are going to be a murderer or are violent. The same applies if they are eccentric or odd. If a man is single and keeps himself to himself, it doesn't mean that he an homosexual or a paedophile, as is often wrongly assumed in today's paranoid, jump to the wrong conclusion, world.
The real murder of Rachel Nickell, Robert Napper, was caught in 2007 with a DNA match, and after pleading guilty in December 2008, by admitting he did it. It was reported in the press that Napper had both Paranoid Schizophrenia AND Asperger's Syndrome. It must be very rare for an individual to have BOTH conditions. Again, this an example of the condition further being demonised in the national press, although if Napper does have Asperger's Syndrome, then I condemn both him and what he did without reservation, but again, this is an extremely rare incident.
The media ought to turn their attention to people with Asperger's who are in mental hospitals and institutions, who have been wrongly diagnosed as being mentally ill instead of demonising the condition. I believe there are more of them than people with AS who commit crimes.
Those are the real, down-to-earth problems that people with Autism and in particular AS face. It may be depressing, but it is realistic, and it is happening today and what is society going to do about it?
Over to you media, with reporting the TRUTH about Asperger's and Autism, and other conditions. Yes it sells newspapers, but it also inflames ignorance and prejudice.
