Nicholas’s story: ‘I’ve been locked up for 10 years because I’m autistic. Is a chance at life too much to ask?’ (The Independent, 9 November 2023)

Summary

In the windowless room where he spends 24 hours a day, lying in the bed he cannot leave, Nicholas Thornton reaches for his laptop and begins to type. It is the only way he can communicate. For more than 10 years, this 28-year-old has been trapped in dementia care units and A&E wards, abused by nurses and held in padded rooms. In all this time, he’s never had the care he needs.

The 28-year-old is bedbound, unable to move and unable to speak, the effects of more than 10 years trapped in hospitals and units that cannot care for his needs. Nicholas, who is autistic and has a learning disability, has been moved again and again since he was first sectioned aged 16, ferried between units hundreds of miles from his family’s home in Essex.

His story comes as a four-year-long independent inquiry, led by House of Lords peer Sheila Hollins, condemns the government for failing to address the “systemic” failures that have led to people with learning disabilities being locked away in hospitals in solitary confinement for up to 20 years.