Last week, video of a Liverpool mother apparently dragging her child on pavement went viral. Now, the mother is speaking out, saying her son has autism.
The very brief video appears to show the mother holding reins, using them to drag the infant on the Basnett Street pavement. Some thought that the child was a doll because it didn’t appear to be reacting.
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“Basically, I was walking through town and the kid fell over and then the woman saw the kid had fallen but kept on walking,” the Twitter user who posted the video told the Liverpool Echo on Oct. 27. “The kid seemed fine with everything to be honest, it was people who saw it that seemed worse off. She walked on like that for a while.”
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The Twitter user said other witnesses were caught “off guard” and weren’t sure about what to do.
After the video went viral, Merseyside Police told the Echo they were reviewing CCTV footage of the incident. They asked anyone who saw the mother on Oct. 25 call them.
On Oct. 27, the 31-year-old mother, who asked not to be identified, told the Echo that it was indeed a child she was dragging. She said her son has autism and “throws himself on the floor” when he has meltdowns.
“What I am doing in that video is the only way I can move him,” the mother said. “He does it all the time and won’t get up or let me pick him up. He just drops to the floor like a sack of spuds.”
She told the Echo she is not a bad mother.
“People are making me out to be a bad mum – I am not a bad mum,” the mother, who is raising the boy alone, said. “They should ask before they judge me. Only two women came up to me and I said ‘he has severe autism.’ And I would have told that to anyone who asked me, but people just stare at me and him and judge and think he is ‘not normal.’ He is normal he just has autism.”
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The mother told the Echo she cannot go out often because of her son’s meltdowns because he does not like being around big crowds. She said only two women came up to her to ask what was wrong with her son and she told them he has autism.
Photo credit: Twitter / Joe Cain
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