AT LAST! AT LAST!

AT LAST! is my first thought to finding out the EHRC are going to do an inquiry into harassment against disabled people.

I note they do not mention Disability Hate Crime which is what such harassment is called when people are targeted due to any perceived difference by society. I wonder why?

For so many years disabled people as individual campaigners and through DPOs have been sharing their experiences of attacks, abuse and harassment due to having an impairment yet most have not believed us.

So now the EHRC, runner up to the Disability Rights Commission, have at last listened to us. It will be interesting to see who they get to be involved to progress this enquiry? Hopefully it will be disabled people themselves who have the knowledge and experience of the impact of such violations of our human rights. We will wait and see.

I hope that our DPOs will be the main organisations giving evidence to the enquiry about the experience of disabled people. I also hope the whole range and diversity of our communities will be considered and not just one or two groups of disabled people with a particular impairment which is what the EHRC has focused on previously.

This inquiry is also to investigate whether police and other public services are implementing their legal duty to eliminate harassment against disabled people. If not then the EHRC states it will use the full force of its powers to penalise these services.
Mmmmm forgive me if I doubt this but my experience is that far from using their powers the EHRC tends not to notice how little most police and public services are doing on this issue.

After all this is not a new legal duty so how much time do they have to be given to be compliant? At the moment it is as though this legal duty has no impact at all apart from in documents that state they will do this and that some time in the future. Not good enough!

Maybe I will be wrong but I have seen little use of the powers the EHRC has to ensure all the Disability legislation we have in place is complied with over the years and very little interest in Disability Hate Crime till last year after the production of our report called ‘Getting Away with Murder’ was available as well as many other such reports by DPOs about Disability Hate Crime.

Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic but experience over two decades of the disbelief about disabled people’s experiences of hate crime taints my response. Hopefully I am wrong and my initial response of immense relief that at last something will be done will be the right one and UKDPC and other DPOs will be involved in this inquiry influencing its findings and recommendations.

Meanwhile disabled people continue to be attacked and murdered getting little response from police or justice services. Yes I can say some police services in particular areas are trying to do something locally but we need to see a high level strategic response to this issue not occasional pilots and projects which only last as long as one particular officer is around.

I continue to campaign and advise for this high level strategic response in various groups working on hate crime, such as the Race for Justice Advisory Group to the Home Office, who have recognised the huge amount of work that needs progressing to get all police forces/services providing disabled people with a service that treats our reports seriously and appropriately rather then being dismissive and ignoring us which is sadly the experience of most disabled people when trying to report hate crimes.

Hopefully the EHRC inquiry will be an impetus for change in all justice services yet whilst we have inadequate and lack of equality in legislation we will always be targets for those who think they can get away with murder and harassment of disabled people.

So we at UKDPC and all DPOs need to continue campaigning for our human rights, equality NOW, not some time far of in the future, and laws that truly give us equal rights in this society not least in the area of crimes against us due to being a disabled person.

So if you have a view about the EHRC new inquiry do contact them about your experiences of hate crime, harassment, abuse, domestic violence due to being a disabled person. Ask how you can give evidence to the inquiry, I certainly will on my own behalf and for UKDPC, send the information about this inquiry to your local police service and ask what they are doing to eliminate harassment against disabled people and how they are working with disabled people to achieve this.

Finally I would like to encourage all DPOs to get involved in any local multi agency crime reduction partnerships in your area, get on your local authorities Hate Crime Panels, become an Independent Advisor to the police and get disability issues on the agenda for policing in your area in any way you can.

Get involved and make people listen, and say it how it is, because gradually and slowly people are beginning to believe us yet we still have far to go to ensure we get equality of justice.

If you would like more information, including statistics and case studies relating to disability hate crime, then please see our report:

Getting Away With Murder - Hate Crime Report