In wanting to make disability hate crimes as illegal and unaccepatable as race hate crimes?

[sickofsocalledexperts]

After watching Rosa Monkton's programme last night, on families coping not only with severely disabled children, but also with feral hooligans shouting abuse at them, punching them, throwing bricks through their windows and making their lives a misery - unchecked by police or law - can I ask if mumsnetters would join me in outlawing disablity hate crimes?

Just possibly it might stop another case happening like that poor poor Fiona Pilkington's, where she burned herself and her disabled daughter to death in a car rather than continue to face abuse from unparented, ignorant youths who had been making their lives a misery for years. And then again last week, where a mother of a long-bullied special needs teenager died saving his life from a fire, caused by the bullies putting a firework through her door! And they watched as she burned to death!

Now it is happening again with a bunch of kids making Asher Nardone and her family's life a misery in Poole, Dorset. Whoever is "mothering" the children who daily hurl abuse at Asher's terribly disabled child, and his brother, should be stripped of the title mother. She's just babysitting the next generation of ciminals in my book. Please ask politicians and lawmakers to say no to disablity hate crimes, to offer real penalities for them, and to help protect our most vulnerable members of society from those with least humanity.

I think awareness is the main point , Mme Lindt, and you are right to narrow it down to the real nub. People are idly using words like "retard" or even "autistic" in the case of a French minister only last week, as insults. You are not allowed to use racist words anymore, and I wish we could start to create a social "shame" around people using "disabilist" words too. But in order to create social shame, you need to up the ante on punishments for certain behaviours. In the same way as the social opprobrium and punishment is a lot worse if someone attacks someone while shouting "PAKI", the boys and girls who go round taunting those who have LD as "retards" or "mongs" should be singled out and made an example of, so that all see it is no longer acceptable. But I also agree with all those who say any harassment of good law-abiding folk by bored teenagers needs tackling - for instance, the awful murder of Gary Newlove who simply tackled youths outside his house for making a nuisance of themselves. They then proceeded to kick him to death in front of his daughter. Gangs of thugs prancing round our streets like they own them need tackling, whoever they are targeting. But my hackles are particularly up about Fiona Pilkington, the lady who died in the fire last week and Asher Nardone, because (in the latter case) to mock a child who cannot walk or talk, and who needs 24 hour care from an already exhausted mother and brother, seems to me the lowest of the low.

I'm walking with you.

These crimes are among the most shocking in society - and, increasingly, not much less fatal.

Let us know if you need any help - we all need to act to stop this vicious and unprovoked cruelty.

Even the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was writing in the Telegraph last month saying that he reckoned the bankers who have wrecked our economy were blind, deaf and had asperger syndrome. I wrote to him to ask him if he could find any other way to express his thoughts, and only got back a standard letter saying "thank you for reading my column"

Not very good, is it, when even the leaders use disability as a way to mock or call people criminals.

Add my name on behalf of my dd who put up with terrible teasing/ bullying at school and did not know how to cope due to her disabilities.

Exactly, Amberlight. If our leaders lead by example by using words like that then what hope do we have of persuading the yobs not to use these words.

I know it is only the tip of the ice berg, but it is a start.

Amberlight's stats make shocking reading - only 141 hate crimes registered in 2007/2008 as anti-disabled, against over 7000 with a racial component. Yet that was exactly (one of ) the years when Fiona Pilkington's poor daughter Francesca, who had learning difficulties, was being called "retard", "Frankenstein" and having her walk mocked by teen boys literally doing abusive impressions of her in her mum's own front garden, night after night. Her mother had repeatedly reported every incident to the police, yet nothing had been done. Eventually Fiona burned herself and her daughter to death in their car, when she could take no more. Perhaps, just perhaps, if the police had been attuned to social disgust and a taboo against disabilist crimes, as they are now to racist crimes, that poor woman would have got some help in time to save her and her child.

They've shocked the government, too. Hence them racing to invite some of us over to talk to the CPS about what needs to be done differently.

There's 270 pages of 'how to prosecute disability crime' report on my desk at the moment. I've read through the lot (urk) and there's hardly a single word about accessibility for disabled people. A couple of paras about allowing a video link or a helper, but that's it.

No wonder they're finding about zero disabled people managing to get as far as a court room. I'm one of the ones helping them understand the painstaking steps they need to take from the very start, not at the point where someonen's already in the witness box.

It's just endless. I get hate mail, people telling me that I should have my child taken away from me as I'm bound to be a cr*p parent because I'm on the autism spectrum, I get called a retard, told I have no soul, told I'm not really a person...that's just the weekly stuff. No wonder we get so worn down.

Who are thesse "people" who write you hate mail and call you a retard, Amberlight! Do they use their real names or are they anonymous letters? You see this is exactly the point - if they were writing racist letters or letters against someone's religion, I bet they wouldn't dare sign their real name, as all hell would be let loose. Didn't I read that a kid got disciplined for telling another kid she was a "chocolate face" in school the other day, yet "retard" is bandied around as a word quite happily on a daily basis by today's charming little teenagers. We need it to stop. It's a blunt intrument to change public opinion by using harsher punishments for minority-rerlated crimes, but it gets the point across. Just like I won't stand by and listen to casual anti-semitism, or racism, why should we stand by and listen to casual disabilism against our (largely helpless) children? And let's remember this thread begun not just because of words, but because of physical assaults on families with disabled children, leading to 2 terrible, preventable deaths!

Some have sent it under their real names, some as anonymised email addresses etc. There's no punishment, so people can do whatever they like, and they do. I've tried getting the law interested, particularly when one was stalking me. Police turned up, took a statement, got the guy into the station for a chat, told him not to do it again, off he went. Result - even more of it for me.
Just not worth it. Risk is too great.

Meant to say - the physical assaults are bad and of course can be fatal in themselves, but the relentless mocking and name-calling is what really gets people down, they say. I know I've been pushed to consider suicide by relentless verbal and social bullying in the past, aimed at my disability.

I so agree with you. Very good points.

Its appalling.

Is there a petition on yougov pertaining to this? If not, perhaps those of you with experience could draft one.

So many relevant and sensible things have been already said that I'll not throw in my two pennorth except to say that harrassment, bullying and violence needs to be further up the agenda than it is currently.

Well done to all those who stand up for our right to be safe and free from fear!

excellent article in last week's independent relevant to this issue:-

"Mind your language - words can cause terrible damage" www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ian-birrell-mind-your-language-words-can%20-cause-terribl e-damage-1815641.html

(pinched link from a mnetters blog)

What a great article, Totalchaos, and I hadn't made the link that even big stars like Lindsey Lohan, the Twilight teenage "lovebirds" and Guy Ritchie/Madonna have been using the word "retard" in highly publicised articles. Without so much as a murmur of disappoval. Certainly we need change, as if those same people called an ex-partner or pal the "n" word there would be an international outcry. Why no outcry for "retard", that is the question? Because our children can't answer back, or don't spend advertising dollars, could that be it?

To answer the question from yesterday "What makes me cry" - this makes me cry - I truly can not believe it - how can people be so cruel ? disgusting

Amber
That is shocking.

Thanks for the link to the Ian Birrell article, it is very good.

Co-incidentally I taught a lesson about hate crimes against disabled people this week. One of the "most often in trouble" students blurted out at the end "I just can't believe anyone would do that" - so I got through to one at least! And I never let any unacceptable words (about disabilities, race, sexual orientation or whatever) go unchallenged. They still say them, mind, but they get challenged!

count me in too. This is dreadful and so worrying. Ds yet to realise he is different and fortunately is in a great supportive school environment. I hope he and everyone else can be protected from this kind of aggression.

What a sad and shocking thread. Count me in.

It is so nice to get support, thanks everyone!

I also support laws against bullying people with SN. Have been appalled at finding out the level of such bullying recently, and also fairly surprised that the current law isn't stronger.

I share others' concerns about having sets of laws for different groups (where will it stop? do religious hatred laws infringe freedom of speech? etc). However, people with SN are a special group, and do need special protection, more so than other groups, imo.

I wonder if anyone has thought that these thugs maybe SN themselves.

I was really moved by the documentary yesterday as I was unaware of the sheer battles a lot of carers of disabled children seem to have to face.

Ignorance and fear is what drives a lot of these yobs, I am guessing - what is different is scary. I guess they don't realise how lucky they are.

Count me in!