Dr Paul Rimmer, an expert in prebiotic chemistry, attended an Evensong service at Cambridge's King's College Chapel on Father's Day with his two sons, one of whom, Tristan, is autistic. It is a family tradition to go to the service but was the first time Tristan had attended.
Dr Paul told Premier that his son "waited patiently in line for about 30 minutes before we were able to go in. When we walked in he really loved looking at the ceiling - the top of the church is very, very beautiful and he enjoyed looking at that and when the singing started he really enjoyed the service".
"Often when he enjoys things he laughs and he calls out and sometimes he does this fairly loudly and we were going through the service and he was doing this and an usher approached us and said he was the disturbing other people at the service and asked us to leave," he explained.
"I informed the usher that my son is autistic and that this is the way that he is. I was told that this was still too distracting and that we had to go.
"I was not aware that anyone was bothered by what he was doing".
When asked how he felt at that point, he replied: "I was angry and upset. I was sad."
Listen to the full interview here:
In what he describes a "misunderstanding in the heat of the moment" between him and the usher, he was under the impression that the Dean had instructed the usher to ask them to be removed.
Since Dr Rimmer wrote his public letter complaining about the situation, Rev Dr Stephen Cherry the Dean of King's College Chapel has replied and apologised publicly and also met with the father of two to clarify that he didn't tell the usher to ask them to leave.
The Dean wrote on his blog: "I was devastated to read the letter that you posted on Facebook this morning. Every week we welcome thousands of people to services in King's Chapel and we do our best to meet all their various needs and expectations.
"Sometimes we fail and I realise that we especially failed you and Tristan on Sunday afternoon. I apologise for that most sincerely.
"Since hearing of your experience I have looked into what happened and now more fully appreciate that that there is more that we can do to support and help the staff who are responsible for the welcome that we give those who come to share our services with us. This is one of the reasons that I have written to you asking if you might be prepared to meet with me.
"I'm sure that your insights and connections could help us do better in the future.
"I should perhaps say for the record that I did not, in fact, give any instruction to the effect that your son should be asked to leave the Chapel on Sunday. Nonetheless as Dean I do take responsibility for the whole life of the Chapel and in that regard I express my unreserved apology and intention that we will do better in the future."
After having met the Dean on Tuesday evening, Dr Rimmer said: "In terms of the apology that I received - the public apology and then also the conversation with the Dean - I can't really imagine that it could have been handled better actually. I think that Rev Stephen Cherry did an exemplary job in terms of engaging me, admitting what had happened and being willing to both invite us back and to work forward on this.
"My hope is that other churches see that there are people who express themselves in a way similar to the way that my son expresses himself and if you're going to have worship services that are open to everyone.
"I think that the primary purpose of worship is to glorify God and so anything that isn't interfering with that should be acceptable and if it's really open to the community it should be open to all in the community and so I think having policies that make that clear but also offer certain ways to help better invite people who are not neurotypical to these sorts of services.
"I think that I would be very, very hopeful that people can see what went wrong and have some idea in their mind about things that they can do pro-actively to make sure this doesn't happen in their own communities."
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