The father of a 15-year-old boy with autism who has spent six months in a secure mental health unit because of a lack of space in specialist care has said the family has yet to receive an explanation from health service officials.

Robin Garnett, who says his highly vulnerable son, Matthew, believes he is being held in prison, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he had been unable to track down who might be in charge of the situation, with consultants refusing to provide names.

“It seems they’re not really interested in talking to parents in cases like these,” he said.

Matthew, who been diagnosed with autism, ADHD and an anxiety condition, physically attacked his father in September and was sectioned to a short-term mental health treatment unit in Woking, Surrey, which the family said was the only option given at the time.

“Our assumption was that was a temporary holding measure, probably for a matter of days, weeks at most,” Robin Garnett said.

A place has been found at St Andrew’s Healthcare in Northampton, which specialises in patients with autism, he said, but Matthew had yet to be moved. The move was agreed months ago, he said. “The fact he’s going there is not in dispute, it’s just that the beds are blocked.”

His son, Garnett said, was “a hulking 15-year-old young adult, but he sees the world like a five-year-old”. As such, he explained, a secure psychiatric unit was deeply distressing. “The only way he can make sense of a building he doesn’t want to be in, with the doors locked, is as a prison. He sees it as a punishment for what he did six months ago.”

An online petition started by the family to pressure the Deparment for Health to move Matthew has received almost 200,000 signatures and considerable media coverage. The petition was a last, desperate measure, Garnett said: “We felt we had to do something after half a year.”

At the weekend, NHS England said it hoped the teenager would be moved soon.



A spokesman for NHS England told the BBC: “We have every sympathy for Matthew and his family and we understand that this has been a very difficult time. It has been confirmed that Matthew will be moved to St Andrew’s, where he will be able to receive the specialist care that he needs. We anticipate this will happen in a matter of weeks but cannot confirm an admission date at this point.”