Footage Reveals Abuse and Confinement of Pupils in Padded Rooms

Surveillance footage acquired by the BBC from a school depicts autistic children being forced into padded rooms, pushed to the ground, subjected to neck restraints, or abandoned to sit in their own vomit. A safeguarding expert characterized the video from Whitefield School in north-east London as resembling “torture,” stating that it unveils the true conditions pupils endured for the first time. A police inquiry into the abuse depicted in the footage, which was recorded within the special school’s “calming rooms” from 2014 to 2017, concluded without charges earlier this year. Nevertheless, parents report being left to cope with the resulting trauma. According to the school, new leadership discovered the footage after the rooms were closed and subsequently provided it to the police. Approximately 40 children, diagnosed with learning disabilities and severe mental disorders, were confined in these rooms for extended periods, often without access to food or drink. Six families granted permission for the BBC to broadcast the footage. Their intention was for the BBC to expose the extent and gravity of the trauma their children endured, about which they believe they were misinformed. The videos illustrate pupils, many of whom lacked verbal communication, exhibiting clear signs of acute distress, with numerous instances of self-injurious behavior observed over extended durations. Within the footage reviewed by the BBC, the sole occasion staff at the Walthamstow school intervened after children were placed in the rooms was when a boy