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Maidstone: Three month wait on strict Sexual Risk Order for schoolboy with autism and Asperger

12:00, 01 August 2016

updated: 12:08, 01 August 2016

A teenage boy with severe learning difficulties will have to wait another three months to learn if stringent court conditions which stop him using computers will be imposed permanently.

We reported how the 16-year-old, of Maidstone, was made subject to an interim Sexual Risk Order (SRO) at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court last month despite not having committed any offences.

Kent Police successfully argued the schoolboy’s “concerning behaviour”, the nature of which was not made public at the hearing, warranted the civil order which bans him from having unsupervised access to the internet or contact with children younger than him.

The pair appeared at Maidstone Magistrates' Court
The pair appeared at Maidstone Magistrates' Court

Fionagh Green, defending, told the court the order was a “great restriction on his liberty and a breach of his human rights,” which was so broad it stopped him taking out a library book and seriously impeded his ability to go to school.

She also told magistrates the weight on her client of the impending proceedings had left him suicidal.

At a case management hearing at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court Mrs Green said the defence will argue her client, who has autism and Asperger syndrome, does not pose a risk and there is insufficient evidence for the order to be imposed.

The defence proposes to call eight witnesses to a trial in front of District Judge Justin Barron in October.

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