Autistic woman case: Ombudsman clearing officers on Lisburn incident shows social media knee-jerk rush to instant judgement on police, says former senior officer

That’s according to former senior policeman Jon Burrows, who feels four officers have been vindicated over the incident in Lisburn in December 2024.

Video footage was shared across social media at the time, leading to widespread condemnation of the PSNI’s actions – but now the Police Ombudsman’s Office has concluded officers didn’t breach their code of ethics.

The Ombudsman did, however, recommend better training for frontline police on how to deal with autistic people, especially those who speak few or no words.

For Mr Burrows, ex-head of the PSNI's discipline branch, the case demonstrates a knee-jerk rush to pillory the force before the full details are known.

“Many people – politicians, journalists, commentators – reached instant verdicts based on a short clip on social media,” he said, adding the News Letter was a rare outlet to feature voices who recommended waiting for the full story to come out, instead of leaping to condemn.

He added: “Officers do their best to make difficult, dynamic decisions in the moment. Nobody wants to be in the situation where they are carrying a young woman out of a shop, but decisions have to be made in the moment – not considered afterwards, on the basis of a short social media video.

“Enhanced training is always welcome and could prove useful in the police’s interactions with neurodivergent people, especially those who are non-verbal.”

The incident happened after the young woman entered a store that was in the middle of closing down and was unable to buy a DVD she wanted as the tills were shut.

The Ombudsman's Office said the situation escalated and the police were called when the woman would not leave the shop.

Body-worn cameras captured two officers arriving to speak to the young woman's parents, making it clear their preference was for the parents to remove her.

Her father then encouraged his daughter to leave, then tried to physically move her. The ombudsman said officers only became physically involved after her father continued to have difficulty, adding one officer was injured during an attempt to escort her outside.

Repeated efforts were made, ending when two more police officers arrived and all four officers plus the father carried the young woman out of the shop.

Finding no misconduct, Ombudsman director of investigations Nikki Davis said the incident was “undoubtedly distressing for this young woman and her parents” but “the officers did not breach the PSNI code of ethics”.

However, she added the incident has “exposed a gap in current PSNI training”, leading to advice that police officers should have enhanced training on engaging with “any autistic person, but especially a person who speaks few or no words and may communicate in other ways”.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said the force’s training has “no specific input for front-line officers on strategies for dealing with those they encounter who may be non-verbal”, and will consider ways to build that element in.