Autistic twins offered compensation for being restrained

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A pair of autistic twins have been offered £80,000 in compensation, after they were repeatedly restrained at a special school.

Samuel and Jacob Montague were put in restraint chairs at a special school in Maidstone, Kent.
Kent County Council admitted the school failed to follow its own policies and broke government guidelines.

The boys' parents discovered what had happened after an unannounced visit to the school by a social worker.

The twins, now 17, were placed in restraint chairs, with lap and shoulder straps, while at Five Acre Wood School when they were aged between five and seven.

Their parents, Mark and Annie Montague, were sent pictures of the boys in the chairs, but the straps were not visible.

The couple said the twins had been left scared and distressed.

Mrs Montague said: "That will always haunt me, and I continuously beg for their forgiveness.
"They came home and we sent them back again, and they just couldn't tell us what was happening to them, and we just stupidly trusted everyone at that school".

"It was because of their autism. They were second class citizens, at best. They weren't human beings, and because they couldn't express themselves, could not talk, that it was OK to do these things to them."