Ashley committed suicide in 2002...Saturday, 16 September 2006. As the children's commissioner for England says the lack of adequate education for autistic children is "shocking and appalling", one mother describes her ordeal.
Joy Belson's son Ashley committed suicide when he was 18 after suffering a number of learning difficulties, including Asperger's, an autistic spectrum disorder.
Ashley felt he was "useless", despite being bright and passing his GCSEs when he was 12 years old.
Mrs Belson, 62, who now lives in Carrickmacross, Ireland, was living in Birmingham at the time. She believes the education system let her son down badly.
'Useless'
"Ashley was first expelled from school when he was about eight. We got him into a local school who worked very very hard with him, but eventually they felt that things were getting a little too disruptive," she said.
That was when he was 11, so Mrs Belson began looking for specialist schools for her son. Ashley also suffered from Tourette Syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Semantic Pragmatic Disorder.
"We were bandied about between lots of schools, but they were not suitable for the problems he had got - they were for children who were badly behaved.
"We finally got him into a school in Chelmsley Wood. The headmaster there worked very very hard with him and he built up a good relationship with him. But when the Ofsted report came through the school was closed, and when it eventually re-opened the headmaster left.
"The new headmistress started taking in children bit by bit. Ashley was only there for a couple of weeks before they told us they couldn't teach him because of the problems he had.
"The fact he'd passed his GCSEs for maths when he was 12 meant nothing to them."
Mrs Belson was never able to find a school that was suitable for Ashley.
"They could cater for his intelligence but not his level of disruption, or they could cater for his disruptiveness but not for his intelligence - they could never do both."
"My son was a lovely boy, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mother, but he was very intelligent, and the system let him down very very badly.
"He would say repeatedly 'I'm useless'."
Ashley never returned to school after he was 13. Mrs Belson believes that being rejected from school was one factor leading to his suicide.
"I feel passionate about this because I know where these kids can go," she said.
For more articles on Autism refer to the following links:
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