Silent Witness storyline on disability hate crime.

[HelenaDove]

One Day Starts tonight on BBC1

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/entries/838149e6-4985-4a11-8bd2-9ed28b2653a5

Just watching now. What's with the police officer? He's so socially awkward he's rude. I hope they aren't trying to make him come across as ASD.

Just thought this was absolutely awful,it actually really upset me too.
I have a daughter who has a rare chromosome disorder,making her very vunerable (she is non-verbal,has a learning disability & is doubly incontinent).
We always suspend our disbelief when we switch on SW,but this episode was just ridiculous on so many levels.
Highlighting disability hate crime is definitely important but this was done so shoddily,it was embarrassing.
I won't be watching part two & I won't be watching anymore SW.
I think the subject,for me,was probably too close to home but that aside,basically it was shit!

This episode just highlighted my fears about my dd, she has autism, learning difficulties and is non-verbal. I worry what will happen when I'm too old to look after her or when I die. I know it's only a fictional storyline but it still makes me sick with worry.

Me too BBQs

That was a difficult watch. Surely there was no need to send a whole troop of police officers after Kevin at the end? And to shoot him because he raised a stick at the police officer? How ridiculous. I agree the story line is far fetched but then I think back to the Winterbourne scandal some years ago, I think abuse of vulnerable people in residential homes does happen but hopefully it's much more rare these days.
I did get a lump in my throat though when Clarissa had that flashback from when she was a young girl. That bit was very believable.

I like SW normally but there were so many holes in this one it was frustrating. I can't see how Kevin and/or Serena would have had the money for that taxi for example, or that the taxi driver wouldn't have been somewhat suspicious. And the characters of those 2 police officers. And the shooting of Kevin. The care home was just...wrong...too. all of the staff seemed odd somehow, regardless of the abuse.
They messed up this one I think.

Watched it, shame that a serious storyline was totally ruined by ludicrousness. I won't bother watching part 2.

Lots of people really seem to have disliked how disability was portrayed on this episode.

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/entries/838149e6-4985-4a11-8bd2-9ed28b2653a5

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/31/disabled-actors-prime-time-tv-silent-witness-mainstream-drama-abusive-political-climate?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

My son also has a very rare chromosome abnormality - he's developmentally on track so far but it's always at the back of my mind that we don't know what the future holds, so I too found this very distressing.

I’m physically disabled (not mentally at all), and rely on carers. I’ve been told (by a sw) that the council can decide to ‘meet my care needs’ by putting me in a home. I think I’m supposed to be grateful that I’ve not been taken against my will out of society and locked away. This terrifies me.

Well 💐

Silent Witness is such badly written bollocks I can't bear to watch it.

Awful that it's upsetting so many.

I’m glad I read this thread because I started to watch the first episode of this last night and (happily it turns out!) fell asleep part way through, though not before I’d seen the abuse of the young man and woman in the care home. I won’t watch the rest.

Out of interest, what did the core silent witness team do about the police brutality / prejudice and the care home abuse? I would have hoped they’d have been scripted to advocate for the vulnerable and fight for the truth and for justice. And get over involved like Nikki does each time, and use all their power and influence to pull various strings to get things done right.

Sounds like they didn’t do anything of the sort though. Just stood there fretting vaguely before getting on with their ‘real’ lives?

I kind of liked the main team and empathize with them (like we’re supposed to)... I sort of feel / felt like they’re ‘people like me’ as it were. But with this programme, it feels like it’s very made pretty damn clear that I’m not people like them at all... they’re the privileged establishment and the writers would clearly feel I’m a very separate and inferior ‘other’.

Which is weird considering they have the great actor Liz Carr in the show...

Well you cant really say that without having watched it in full.

" I think I’m supposed to be grateful that I’ve not been taken against my will out of society and locked away"

Well when i mentioned on a thread that my parents needed a stairlift installed in their home i got asked...........why didnt they go into a care home. They are both 82 still sharp as tacks but have trouble getting up and down the stairs. my dad is still working.

When i posted that they would really rather stay in their home i got accused of wanting to protect my inheritance.

By people who chuck the words "property ladder" around on threads.

My parents have never used that phrase and neither have i They are still in the first house they bought ...........in 1968.

Its not ok for these attitudes to persist.

I've watched both parts and thought it was very well done. It was deeply uncomfortable viewing at times but powerful and moving: I cried and I don't remember that ever happening in an episode of Silent Witness before.

Yes there were elements that were far fetched but that's par for the course with SW and actually, the more I thought about it, the more plausible the whole thing seemed. The police narrative had become so skewed against Kevin by the time he was shot (murder, resisted arrest, assaulted police officer, abduction, threatened to shoot the groundskeeper). The police treated him as a dangerous suspected murderer, rather than a vulnerable adult and acted accordingly.

I found the scenes with Clarissa in the second episode particularly harrowing: Clarissa being wheeled down the corridor against her will and shouting for help and nursing staff hearing her but ignoring her and failing to help. It was horribly believable to my eyes. And all the more powerful I think because Clarissa is a regular character in the show- the audience respect her expertise. To see her dismissed by nursing staff as ' a disabled person who isn't worth listening to' is particularly shocking and brings the issues into very sharp focus for the audience.

I watched the second half yesterday and actually I thought it was good. Farfetched with plotholes as usual, but I liked the way the team wouldn't let it lie when the police were not interested, and I liked the young uniformed policeman who actually listened. I thought it was a good way to bring these kind of abuses into people's everyday lives.

WellThis, since you only watched a quarter of it, I really don't think your assessment is either fair or accurate. The writers clearly do not think disabled people are other or inferior, in fact I'd say the whole plot line was meant to show the viewers that this isn't the case.

WellThisIsShit whatever people may think of the writing or the show itself this was a story written by someone who has a son with disabilities and starred several actors with disabilities all of whom really wanted to give an important that people with disabilities are valuable. Your statement about is showing people with disabilities as inferior is therefore wildly unfair and inaccurate.

Furry i thought it was very well done too.

As for the young policeman who wouldnt let it lie........well i seem to remember a policewoman who knew something was wrong at a house in Cromwell Street and she wouldnt let it lie which led to the arrest of Fred and Rose West.

Furry i wonder if Philip Hammond or Philip Davies watched it. The former claimed UK productivity rates were low because more disabled ppl are in work. The latter said disabled ppl should be paid less than minimum wage.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/philip-hammond-uk-productivity-rates-low-because-more-disabled-people-are-in-work_uk_5a281714e4b044d16726b7bd

www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jun/17/tory-philip-davies-disabled-people-work

Which is ironic as the Bank of England’s chief economist said last year poor productivity is due to bad management.
www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/03/20/bad-managers-blame-uks-productivity-crisis-says-bank-englands/amp/

The case of Stefan Kiszko

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/a-terrible-crime-with-two-victims-1047375

Behind the scenes and interviews

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05wnr5d

Ok I did watch the second one and have revised my opinion as they did (finally) get into it properly and make it clear that disabled people are worth fighting for

By the way, this is what a carer gave me to drink 2 days ago. Nice, fresh water in a nice clean bottle.

I pay £20 an hr to be treated like this.

I have to fight for my humanity nearly every day of my life.

And yet until a few months ago I was also in a professional job and was earning enough to be paying higher rate tax for many many years.

But it’s still not enough ‘proof’ for people to believe I have value as a human. That maybe, i could be just like themselves inside.

This story line cuts deep for me.