Autistic boy 'left vulnerable to drugs gang'

Stacey said her son was targeted when he went missing from his school

A child with special educational needs was left vulnerable to drug dealers because of failings by Devon County Council, his mother claims.

Stacey, from Devon, said her son, now 15, who the BBC is not identifying, would regularly go missing, and also claimed his school could not meet his needs before he was subsequently groomed by a drug gang.

The family won a tribunal against the council after it had previously placed her son in a mainstream secondary school - against the advice of Stacey and a child psychologist, which his mother said led to him being severely bullied.

A spokesperson for the council said it was unable to talk about individual cases but "ensuring that every child in Devon has access to good quality education" was a priority.

Gang disbanded

Stacey said her son, who was 14 at the time and has high functioning autism, regularly went missing from school.

She said on one occasion he was taken to a drug dealer's house and given drugs including cocaine and cannabis.

The boy's mother said he then accrued debt with the dealers - who she said tried to recruit him into selling.

He went to live with his father outside of Devon, but Stacey said armed dealers turned up at his house looking for money.

He has since returned to Devon as his mother said the drug gang had since been disbanded by police.

But Stacey said that "from then on [after the armed incident], we started having cameras around the house so we could watch the area a little bit more".

Families of children with special educational needs have taken Devon County Council to tribunal nearly 400 times in four years, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FoI) request.

It showed the local authority either lost or conceded the majority of those appeals.

The council spokesperson said: "Ensuring that every child in Devon has access to good quality education is a priority for us.

"We are working with local partners to deliver our SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disability] Improvement Programme to improve outcomes and the lived experience of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, and their families."