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Disability hate crime convictions surge by 40 per cent

Both prosecutions and convictions are up

Thursday 08 September 2016 18:17 BST

Wheelchair users can be the target of disability hate crime (Getty)

Prosecutions for disability hate crimes surged by more than 40 per cent last year compared to the year before, official figures show.

The Attorney General’s Office released statistics showing that the Crown Prosecution Service completed 941 prosecutions for such crimes in 2015/16 compared to 666 in the previous year. Convictions were also up by a similar rate, from 503 to 707, also around a 40 per cent increase.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it was trying to push up rates of prosecution and conviction for such crimes to send out a message that they would be treated seriously.

“The rise in prosecutions and convictions for disability hate crime are a direct result of the improvements we have made," a spokesperson said. “This includes training for all CPS prosecutors on prosecuting disability hate crime and working closer with the victims of hate crime, the police and other agencies to secure convictions.

“This sends out a clear message that these crimes are treated seriously and will attract a higher sentence for those who are found or plead guilty.”

Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece, the Liberal Democrats’ equalities spokesperson, said it was good that crimes were being prosecuted but worrying that there was such a significant rise in the figures. “It is appalling to see such a sharp increase in the levels of disability hate crime and discrimination,” she said.

“While it is good to see that more people are being prosecuted we know that this is an area of underreporting. What’s needed is more support for victims to empower them to report these heinous crimes.”

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

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1/77 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Closing Remploy factories

The Work and Pensions Secretary called time on Britain’s system of Remploy factories, which provided subsidised and sheltered employment to disabled people. People employed at the factories protested against their closure and said they provided gainful work. “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?” Mr Duncan Smith said at the time, defending the decision. “I promise you this is better.” The Remploy organisation was privatised and sold to American workfare provider Maximus, with the majority of the organisation’s factories closed. The future of the remaining sites is unclear

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Scrapping the Independent Living Fund

The £320m Independent Living Fund was established in 1988 to give financial support to people with disabilities. It was scrapped on July 1 2015, with 18,000 often severely disabled people losing out by an average of £300 a week. The money was generally used to help pay for carers so people could live in communities rather than institutions. Councils will get a boost in funding to compensate but it will not cover the whole cost of the fund. This new cash also doesn’t have to be spent on the disabled

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme

Iain Duncan Smith is bringing forward a policy that will reduce payments to some disabled people from a scheme designed to help them into work. The £108m scheme, which helps 35,540 people, will be capped on a per-used basis, potentially hitting those with the more serious disabilities who currently receive the most help. The single biggest users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and hearing. The cut will come in from October 2015. The charity Disability UK says the scheme actually makes the Government money because the people who gain access to work tend pay tax that more than covers its cost. The DWP does not describe the reduction as a “cut” and says it will be able to spread the money more thinly and cover more people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut Employment and Support Allowance

The latest Budget included a £30 a week cut in disability benefits for some new claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Government says it is equalising the rate of disability benefits with Jobseekers Allowance because giving disabled people more help is a “perverse incentive”. The people affected by this cut are those assessed as having a limited capability for work but as being capable of some “work-related activity”. A group of prominent Catholics wrote to Mr Duncan Smith to say there was “no justification” for this cut. Mental health charity Mind, said the cut was “insulting and misguided”

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions

Official figures in the first quarter of 2014 found a huge increase in sanctions against people reliant on ESA sickness benefit. The 15,955 sanctions were handed out in that period compared to 3,574 in the same period the year before, 2013 – a 4.5 times increase. The homelessness charity Crisis warned at the time that the sharp rise in temporary benefit cuts was “cruel and can leave people utterly destitute – without money even for food and at severe risk of homelessness”. “It is difficult to see how they are meant to help people prepare for work,” Matt Downie, director of policy at the charity added

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests

In 2012 a government advisor appointed to review the Government’s Work Capability Assessment said the tests causing suffering by sending sick people back to work inappropriately. “There are certainly areas where it's still not working and I am sorry there are people going through a system which I think still needs improvement,” Professor Malcolm Harrington concluded. The tests are said to have improved since then, but as recently as this summer they are still coming in for criticism. In June the British Psychological Society said there was “now significant body of evidence that the WCA is failing to assess people’s fitness for work accurately and appropriately”. It called for a full overhaul of the way the tests are carried out. The WCA appeals system has also been fraught with controversy with a very high rate of overturns and delays lasting months and blamed for hardship

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

The bedroom tax

The Government’s benefit cut for people who it says are “under-occupying” their homes disproportionately affects disabled people. Statistics released last year show that around two-thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty, widely known as the ‘bedroom tax’, are disabled. There have been a number of high profile cases of disabled people being moved out of specially adapted homes by the policy. In one case publicised by the Sunday People last week, a 48 year old man with cerebral palsy was forced to bathe in a paddling pool after the tax moved him out of his home with a walk-in shower. The Government says it has provided councils with a discretionary fund to help reduce the policy’s impact on disabled people, but cases continue to arise

Sarah Newton, the Minister for Vulnerability, Safeguarding and Countering Extremism said the Government was also pushing for more crimes to be reported.

“This Government is committed to building a Britain that works for everyone and we are clear that there is no excuse for hate crime of any form," she said. "We are determined to stamp it out and have published a new action plan which focuses on reducing hate crime, increasing reporting and improving support for victims.

"We also commissioned Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to review the police’s response to the issue.

“I am pleased that more people are being prosecuted for disability hate crime – which has traditionally been underreported – but there is still more to do.”

The findings come after a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that warned that disabled children are almost twice as likely to be victims of crime as non-disabled children.

The Commission’s chair David Isaac said of the report: “These findings are a wake-up call that there is still much more that needs to change. We cannot hope to create a more inclusive society for future generations while disabled children continue to live in a climate of fear of victimisation.”

Peter Jenkins, the disability campaigns director for the charity Leonard Cheshire, said hate crimes against disabled people often had long-lasting effects.

“The impact of disability hate crime is devastating for disabled people and their families. Crimes against disabled people are often not even reported to the police because many victims don’t know who to talk to or how to report attacks,” he said.

“Victims of disability hate crime often continue to suffer long-lasting anxiety leaving them too scared to leave their homes.

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