Lauryn loved to walk. She would walk anywhere and she would walk for hours. She would walk in the countryside and through the woods. She would walk around the streets of East Belfast where we live.
She is a 17-year old person with autism, severe learning difficulties and mood disorder. When the first coronavirus lockdown began, she stopped walking. She would get up, go downstairs and sit in front of the TV, a device in her hands, scrolling through it to find new toys to buy. She would do that almost all day.
Lauryn is my daughter and the pandemic has brought our family close to breaking point. It didn’t have to be this way. If the government had fulfilled its legal obligations to us, the last six months would have been different.
