Man with autism get his ‘life back’ after years in unsuitable accommodation

When we met Nicholas Thornton, it was a beautiful end of summer bank holiday Monday in 2023.  We were at a dog show and he arrived in his wheelchair with his brother Sebastian and his mother Emma and her Mexican hairless dogs.

Nicholas, then 28, was on a day out from a mental health unit.  But here is the important part, Nicholas was not in that unit because of a mental health issue but because he has autism and learning difficulties and the authorities had been unable to find him suitable accommodation in the community.

For 10 years he had been moved around: from a unit for people with drug and alcohol addiction to a home for the elderly. In one hospital ward he was physically attacked by a carer who said they hated people with disabilities. The police were called but the case was not pursued.

In another supported living unit in Wales, he was allegedly placed naked on his bed in front of a window. The police arrived and told the staff to cover him up.

With the Independent’s health correspondent Rebecca Thomas, we investigated what had happened to him over the years and why he was still in an inappropriate setting.

On that day at the dog show, Nicholas was wearing headphones and dark glasses. His only form of communication was through his iPad. He had been mute for three years.

His brother read out his words to us and it is this that stays with me when I asked him if there was too much stimulation in the hospital: “It is like torture.  I can’t get away from the alarms and everything, the number of people, the florescent lights.”

For more than a decade he had not seen friends, only occasionally seeing his family.

Sebastian said it was upsetting. “He shouldn’t have been put through it.”

Nicholas was one of more than 2,200 people with autism and or learning difficulties in in-patient units.

Essex County Council, who are responsible for his care, said that in a small number of very complex cases there can be challenges in sourcing provision in the community which meets the person’s needs.

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And so it turned out. It took a year after our first report for Nicholas to be moved into the community. We met him a couple of months later at his specially-adapted bungalow. The change was both profound and moving.

He looked so much better. He smiled and to our astonishment he had found his voice. He could talk. It was wonderful.

He has round the clock care and he still needs so much help, but he has plans. He wants to go to college, go to his beloved West Ham football club, see friends.

He cried: “It is like I have my life back.”

We cried.

And then he told me he had gone out at two in the morning to see the stars and the moon, which he hadn’t been able to do for years.