I do not think the parents had any choice about handing him in after the pictures of him with the bin were made public.By taking him in, it gave others at the traveller site time to' tidy up 'before the police search teams arrived.
I'm not completely convinced his parents had to hand him in .. they could easily have tried to make him disappear within his community imo
His teacher said he was always well looked after by his family, his mom was always very worried about how he would cope in the outside world with his difficulties.. he only attended special assistance school 3 afternoons a week ...his mom was desperate to get him into a type of agricultural college