Disabled people 'objects of hate'

A man from Redcar has set up a new organisation with the hope of changing discriminatory attitudes towards disabled people. Andrew Clark from Redcar is autistic and has set up a non-profit organisation to educate public bodies and private companies about disability. The newly-formed National Society for the Equal Rights to the Disabled plans to hold a series of events in 2011. Andrew believes education is the key to changing people's opinions.

Andrew founded NSERD along with a friend who lives in Wisconsin, USA, and has children with multiple special needs. The organisation is planning to hold a series of musical workshops and information sessions on Teesside, as well as some political campaigning in London. Andrew hopes to push for greater educational opportunities for disabled people and a national ID card, to prove the holder is genuinely disabled.

He said: "We've all had justice for racial equality and women's rights and sexual rights. I feel now it's time that we have rights for disability as well." He also says the law, as it is currently applied, is not effectively protecting disabled people from discrimination.

In June, the UK's equality watchdog announced an inquiry into whether public bodies are doing enough to stop disability hate crime. Public bodies like councils, police and schools are legally obliged to protect disabled people from abuse, but in several high profile cases, have failed to effectively do so.

From 1 October 2010, the Equality Act came into force, promising protection and legal rights for disabled people in the fields of employment, education, access to goods and services, property and functions of public bodies.

But Andrew says effectively policing disability hate crime is still proving difficult. "If you say, 'You retard,' then that's something directly against my disability. But it's when they don't use those words that in the criminal process, it doesn't really indicate that it's against their disability, even though the victim knows it's against their disability and that's where the complexities are."