Fears over disability hate crime

Charities report that crime against the disabled is worryingly common. But two years after a law targeting disability hate crime came into force, the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are only now facing up to the scale of the problem.

Andrew Lee works for the learning disability charity People First. He says he was a victim of disability hate crime but even although his brother is a policeman he did not report the incident because he doubted the police would take him seriously.

"I was walking down this road and about nine youths actually stood in a straight line from pavement to pavement and I was spat at and lifted up and pushed against a wall and punched. But what really frustrated me was knowing that even if I'd reported it, officially nothing would have actually happened and that's the issue for the police - even if we're brave enough to report it officially, will we be believed?"

There are 11 million people registered as disabled in the UK. Numerous surveys have highlighted the problem of crime against the disabled people. A recent report for the mental health charity Mind said nearly three quarters of people with mental health problems have been the victim of crime or harassment in the past two years. According to the disability charity Leonard Cheshire, one in five disabled people say they have been a victim of crime.

Not all crimes against disabled people are disability hate crimes but Anne Novis, who co-chairs the Metropolitan Police independent advisory group on disability, says even when disabled people report crimes they are not being correctly reported or recognised.

She uses a wheelchair and earlier this year after an evening meeting on her local high street was singled out by a group of youths. "They started calling me names, laughing at me. They ran around my wheelchair, they were very threatening. They were laughing and the other group was egging them on calling me all sorts of names, like spastic, cripple, stupid woman. 'What are you doing out this time of night?' and all that sort of thing. They followed me a long way up the high street into a side road where my car was parked. They picked up planks of wood off the ground and swung that around my head and around my chair."

Anne has set up a scheme to help disabled people report crimes in her local area. But when she tried to report what happened to the police they told her because she was not physically harmed, it was not a crime, let alone a disability hate crime. "I ticked the box that said it was a disability hate crime on the website and still it's not captured in the statistics as hate crime. So what happens to people who are less articulate than me who have less access to the police than me? The police don't know - they just don't know, they aren't aware".

The 2003 Criminal Justice Act made it the courts' duty to increase the sentence for "any offence aggravated by hostility based on the victim's disability". The law came into force in 2005, but the CPS only started recording cases as "disability aggravated" in April this year. Since then only 68 cases had been identified, but a BBC Radio 5 Live Report has new figures showing a third of these were incorrectly recorded.

The CPS says at least 30 cases have been successfully prosecuted and it is "firmly committed to bringing the perpetrators of crimes against disabled people to justice". It points to a new system of 42 area-based disability hate crime coordinators, the inclusion of a new "disability aggravated" category into its monitoring of cases, and a new campaign to raise awareness among staff.

The police have also accepted there has been massive under-reporting of the issue. Real levels were estimated to represent a "many 100-fold increase of cases compared to what the police know about" according to Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris in recent evidence to a parliamentary group considering the issue.

Several recent high profile cases have helped bring the issue to prominence including Kevin Davies, an epileptic man who died after being locked up in a shed and tortured by so-called friends. His mother, Elizabeth James, told the 5 Live Report: "Five months they held him captive, starving him, beating him, he was burnt, he was branded, he was cut, he was starved. They basically neglected him 'til he died."

Murder could not be proved because Kevin had epilepsy and it was possible he had died from a seizure. The defendants pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault. The case was not investigated as a disability hate crime. "I don't say it was a disability hate crime but once it started and they realised they could get away with taking his money, taking advantage of him - he was a very trusting person and he would trust anyone - I think it snowballed because of his disability with his epilepsy. Obviously the longer the sentence the happier I'd be. Whatever they did it wouldn't be enough for me, because of what they did to him. It was just pure cruel what they put that boy through."