ADHD Is Not an Excuse for Misogyny: Why This Tribunal Ruling Is Bad for Women, Neurodivergence and the Police Service
This week a UK employment tribunal ruled that a Metropolitan Police staff member with ADHD had been unfairly dismissed after making repeated sexual comments towards female colleagues.
The case, reported by the Daily Mail and The Telegraph, concluded that his behaviour was linked to his neurodivergence. If I’m honest, reading this, my blood was at boiling point.
The media conversation around ADHD also tends to ignore the structural challenges people face when trying to access support. Right now, many adults seeking diagnosis are facing years-long waiting lists through the NHS, something I explore further in my article about the NHS ADHD waiting list crisis. When diagnosis and treatment become harder to access, misinformation in the media becomes even more damaging — because it shapes how workplaces, families, and professionals respond to neurodivergent people.
I spoke to my police colleagues, who remain close friends, and protested that this is going to do the opposite of help senior leaders understand what neurodivergence really is.
I stormed around my house, cleaning and colour-coding my wardrobe, to try and calm down before I had 1:1 clients all afternoon.
I was so enraged that I created an 11-page post on Instagram informing my audience that they, too, should be angry about this.
And if I’m honest, I’m still pretty pissed off about it, 4 days later.
The thing is, ADHD is real, and it can affect impulse control. ADHD can also make social cues harder to read.
But ADHD is not an excuse for sexualised comments or misogyny.
And rulings like this risk creating a narrative that harms both women in the workplace and neurodivergent people who are trying to be taken seriously.
On top of all this — and probably what frustrates me the most — rulings like this risk reinforcing the eye-rolling scepticism that already exists in some senior ranks. The quiet dismissal that neurodivergence is just another “excuse” rather than something police forces genuinely need to understand.
And that matters.
Because the need for proper education on ADHD in policing is very real. If forces continue to ignore it, they won’t just face cultural problems — they’ll face increasing numbers of staff and officers in employment tribunals.
I see this first-hand.
The monthly ADHD police support group I host with Dr Miriam Mavia-Zajac regularly highlights just how desperate officers and staff are for their superiors to understand ADHD properly. Not as a 30-minute tick-box PowerPoint exercise, but as a genuine attempt to understand how neurodivergent brains function in high-pressure environments.
The Narrative This Creates
When cases like this hit the headlines, the message the public receives is very simple:
“ADHD made him do it.”
But that framing is really bloody problematic.
It feeds the idea that neurodivergence is a get-out-of-jail free card for behaviour that makes women uncomfortable at work. It baffles me that anyone would use it as an excuse - I find it embarrassing for every hard working, highly intelligent person who manages to do life without being a pest.
It also reinforces a damaging stereotype — that people with ADHD are incapable of understanding boundaries or controlling their behaviour. That narrative harms everyone.
It undermines the experiences of women who are trying to speak up about inappropriate behaviour, and it fuels scepticism towards neurodivergence at a time when workplaces are only just beginning to understand it.
And that scepticism already exists in professions like policing, where conversations about behaviour, accountability, and culture are often far more complicated than a headline can capture.
My Perspective from Inside Policing
Having worked in policing for years, there were two things I saw repeatedly when it came to conversations about ADHD and behaviour.
The first was simple reality: senior leaders are often dealing with constant structural change. Policing is an environment where priorities shift rapidly, departments restructure, and operational demands never slow down. In that context, ADHD training rarely makes it onto the list of urgent issues that need attention.
The second issue is misunderstanding.
For many officers and leaders, the main exposure they have had to ADHD is through custody suites and courtrooms — hearing it raised as a factor in criminal behaviour. When that is your primary point of reference, it is easy to start viewing ADHD not as a neurological difference, but as an “excuse” people use to avoid responsibility.
And that misunderstanding carries into workplace culture.
Policing is a profession that deals with extremely dark realities — violence, trauma, and human suffering. Dark humour and banter are often part of how officers cope with that reality and support each other through difficult work.
For the most part, it comes from a place of camaraderie.
The vast majority of officers and staff I worked with were good people doing their best to support their colleagues and get through demanding jobs.
But like in any workplace, there are always a few individuals who push boundaries too far. When that happens, it is not a reflection of the entire culture — but it does highlight why clear boundaries and better understanding are still needed.
Because supporting neurodivergent employees and maintaining professional standards should never be seen as opposing goals.
They are both part of building a workplace where people can do difficult jobs without harming each other in the process.
ADHD and Impulse Control — What It Actually Means
ADHD can affect impulse control. That part is true. People with ADHD can interrupt without meaning to. They might speak before fully thinking something through, or say something socially awkward because their brain moves faster than the conversation.
But difficulties with impulse control do not remove personal responsibility. There is a clear difference between making the occasional social mistake and repeatedly crossing professional boundaries.
Interrupting someone in a meeting or blurting something out and immediately realising it sounded wrong.
Those are the kinds of impulsive moments many people with ADHD recognise.
Repeated sexual comments towards female colleagues are something else entirely.
That is not simply impulsivity. It is behaviour that crosses a clear boundary and makes other people uncomfortable in their place of work.
And the irony is that many of the ADHD women I work with worry constantly about getting it wrong.
They replay conversations in their heads. They analyse their tone. They apologise when they think they may have upset someone, even when they haven’t.
So the idea that people with ADHD are somehow incapable of understanding boundaries simply doesn’t match the reality I see every day.
Understanding neurodivergence should help workplaces create better communication, clearer expectations, and appropriate support for employees.
It should never be used as a reason to lower the standard of how people treat each other.
Because supporting neurodivergent employees and maintaining professional boundaries are not opposing goals.
They are both essential for building workplaces where people feel respected and safe.
The Real Damage This Causes
When ADHD is used to explain behaviour that harms women, the consequences reach much further than a single tribunal case.
First, it makes workplaces more complicated and unsafe for women who are already navigating difficult environments.
Speaking up about inappropriate behaviour at work is rarely straightforward. Many women weigh up the potential consequences before they say anything — whether they’ll be believed, whether they’ll be labelled “difficult”, or whether they’ll simply be told they misunderstood a joke.
When a case like this becomes public, it risks reinforcing the idea that women should simply tolerate behaviour that makes them uncomfortable, because the person responsible may have a diagnosis.
That is not progress.
But it also harms neurodivergent people.
When ADHD is repeatedly linked in headlines to inappropriate behaviour, employers begin to see it not as a difference that requires understanding, but as a potential risk.
That makes it harder for neurodivergent employees who are already working hard to be taken seriously, to ask for adjustments, or to speak openly about how their brain works.
And perhaps most frustratingly, it distracts from the real conversations workplaces should be having about ADHD.
The everyday realities that neurodivergent people actually struggle with — burnout, masking, sensory overload, executive dysfunction — get lost behind sensational stories about misconduct.
In the end, no one benefits from that narrative.
Women feel less safe speaking up.
Neurodivergent people face greater stigma.
And organisations miss the opportunity to properly understand the people who work within them.
A Final Thought for Police Leadership
Policing asks people to do some of the hardest work in society. Officers and staff deal daily with trauma, violence, and human suffering that most people will never encounter. In that environment, strong teams and trust between colleagues matter more than almost anything.
But trust requires two things to exist at the same time: accountability and understanding.
Neurodivergence should never be used to excuse behaviour that harms colleagues. But ignoring neurodivergence altogether is equally damaging, because it leaves many officers and staff struggling silently in systems that were never designed with their brains in mind.
The reality is that ADHD already exists in policing. In significant numbers. I would bet my last pound coin that there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, more officers and staff diagnosed within the next few years. And they will all need support.
The question for police leadership is not whether neurodivergence is real. It is whether forces are prepared to understand it properly — before misunderstanding, conflict, and preventable workplace problems continue to play out in tribunals and headlines.
Because supporting neurodivergent staff and maintaining professional standards are not competing priorities.
They are both part of building police forces that are healthier, safer, and better able to serve the public.
One of the biggest problems with the way ADHD is portrayed in the media is how simplified the narrative often becomes. Headlines tend to reduce ADHD to a stereotype — either a quirky personality trait or a convenient excuse for behaviour — when the reality is far more complex. In my work with neurodivergent women, I regularly see how misunderstood ADHD still is, particularly when it comes to things like emotional intensity and the years many women spend masking their symptoms in order to fit in at work or socially.
If you’re interested in understanding these experiences in more depth, I’ve written about how ADHD emotional intensity shows up in women and why so many women spend years masking ADHD traits before finally recognising what’s really going on. These are the kinds of realities that rarely make it into news stories, but they shape the daily lives of thousands of women navigating ADHD.
