A friend of mine is at her wits' end and needs help. She has a severely handicapped son of 16 and must have saved social services thousands of pounds by looking after him herself.

Her husband works long hours, so during the day most of the worry falls on her shoulders.

Her son suffers from autism and has severe learning difficulties. He cannot speak so he bangs his head against a wall and screams.

A few weeks ago the family suffered, watching this for nine long hours.

When they suggested he might be in pain, they were told his behaviour stems from autism and to increase his medication.

This lad is not a little boy any more. He is the size of a man, with the strength of a man, but he is still in nappies.

They have to lock him up at night because he has trashed their home many times, attacked my friend and his teachers.

He will be dismissed from his special school because of this because the teachers can't cope. Social services know all this.

When my friend takes him out, she can only do so by strapping him in a wheelchair.

For the last two years he has also suffered from a severe cough that makes him retch and vomit but still the medical profession says "it is only autism".

My friend has been given a few days' respite but sometimes she gets a phone call to cancel a day's break because of staff shortages.

Does my friend have to leave her son at the social services offices and then be prosecuted for abandoning him?

She needs help.

He should now be in a home full-time. If she had put her son in a home when he was a baby, he would have a place in a home now but because she loved and cared for him when he was a baby, she is now being punished, in a way, by denying her the right of a place for him.

-Mrs I Kuhn, Lancing