The UK’s leading charity for autism has said it is important not to generalise about the condition in the wake of comments made by Gregg Wallace in which he appeared to link the allegations of misconduct made against him to his own diagnosis.
The TV presenter was sacked as MasterChef presenter on Tuesday after an inquiry into his alleged inappropriate behaviour by the production company Banijay.
New claims emerged this week about the TV presenter from 50 or more people, to the BBC, with the majority saying he made inappropriate sexual comments. Eleven women accused him of inappropriate sexual behaviour, such as groping and touching.
In a statement, the 60-year-old presenter said he had recently been diagnosed as autistic but TV bosses had failed to “investigate my disability” or “protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment”.
The former greengrocer posted a statement on his Instagram page on Tuesday claiming he had been cleared of the “most serious and sensational accusations” against him.
In response, a spokesperson for the National Autistic Society, said: “Every autistic person is different, just like every non-autistic person is different, so it is important not to generalise or make judgments based on the actions, words or behaviour of any one individual.”
Some of the more recent claims include a MasterChef worker who said she tried to complain about comments she alleged Wallace made about her body in 2022, and a former police officer who said he tried to raise concerns after he allegedly witnessed Wallace making inappropriate sexual comments at a charity event in 2023.
Other autism and disability charities and campaigners criticised Wallace’s comments.
Jessie Hewitson, a director of NeuroUniverse, a company that trains companies in supporting neurodiverse employees, who is autistic, said: “I don’t make the connection between this alleged behaviour and autism.
“We support companies in supporting their neurodivergent employees. Common scenarios we encounter with autistic people are often they may say things in a direct way which offend colleagues.
“For example, there might be heightened anxiety around something’s changed [at work]. And to other colleagues it can look like the autistic person is being very difficult, when, really, potentially, they’re just very stressed.
“Those are the kind of common misunderstandings you encounter. We’ve never encountered someone coming to us saying they’ve got an autistic employee who’s behaved in a sort of sexually inappropriate way or has said sexually inappropriate things.”
Hewitson said the law stated that employers had to support neurodivergent people, but that did not offer a “free pass” for bad behaviour.
“It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take responsibility for it,” she said.
“We’ve been terribly stereotyped since the dawn of time. Everyone considers us emotionless, weird robots, and we were totally dehumanised.
“I feel like that stereotype is starting to go so I worry that this will create a conflation in some people’s minds between inappropriate workplace behaviour and autism.”
Seema Flower, the founder of Blind Ambition, a disability training consultancy, said: “To use autism as an excuse to behave the way that he is alleged to have behaved is very, very poor.
“This was over 20 years. If you do it once, you do it twice, then you’ve got a problem. You go and seek some advice and get some remedies and strategies in place.”
Flower said it was “really damaging” to perceptions of autistic people. “It has great, negative ramifications,” she said.
“Because the general public will think ‘that person’s got autism, they’re going to be likely to sexually assault me or abuse me or make inappropriate comments’.
“People will be less likely to employ people with autism, they’re less likely to work with them. They’re less likely to to have any interaction with them sexually.”
She added: “It’s also making a mockery of the whole diagnosis of autism. You’re saying that if someone’s got autism, are they going to get a free pass to inappropriately behave with women or men?”