Whilst out shopping with my daughter a few months ago I had an upsetting experience!

We were in a large supermarket and my child was in the special needs shopping trolley and a customer walked past and stared at my little girl, at the same time as she was making noises and vocalising in her own way (she is non-verbal). The customer thought it was funny and started to mimick her with a grin on his face!

This really upset me. My daughter didn’t understand what was happening, but I was equally angry at the same time. As he walked off I tried to explain that my child has autism and doesn’t talk. He just walked off, no apology at all!

I approached a member of staff at the supermarket and told him what had happened. Within minutes the team leader had told the manager and the security guard of this incident. They then walked up and down each aisle with me to find this customer so they could speak to him about this. The manager said, “This is totally unacceptable and we don’t put up with this here!”

The customer in question must have gone because we couldn’t find him in store. However the manager told the security guard to look back on the camera footage and to take a photo shot of this man and to look out for him on his next visit to store, and then to approach him about this incident and to tell him how unacceptable this is!

I thanked them and told them they had gone above and beyond to help me.

If anyone else has similar experiences to share, please feel free to do so in the comment section below or by sending us a message.