‘Hidden in plain sight’, the final report of the EHRC inquiry into disability-related harassment was published on 12th September.
The report unsurprisingly concludes that harassment is a commonplace experience for disabled people, and at the same time institutions like police, housing and councils often dont believe harassment is taking place or don’t tackle it effectively.

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From London Disabled People’s Advisory committee

The Supreme Court has ruled in support of Kensington and Chelsea council’s withdrawal of overnight care to Elaine McDonald to save money. This will mean she will have no choice but to wear pads, although this is undignified and against her express wishes. Male judges are undermining a woman’s right to choose how she is helped with personal care.

The ruling has accepted that reviewing care plans can be treated as a reassessment of need. Therefore any contact with social services, even a phone call, could lead to detrimental changes to a disabled person’s care package.

The idea that privacy and independence can best be facilitated by dispensing with personal assistants or care workers at night was also supported by the Supreme Court. This is contrary to the government’s Independent Living Strategy, and undermines everything we have fought for as a disabled people’s movement for the last forty years. Personal assistance is vital to many disabled people’s independence and safety. Disabled people with complex health and social care needs who cannot move unaided should never be left alone at night in case of a fire or a sudden deterioration in their condition.

Disabled people, family carers, personal assistants, women, pensioners, community activists and trade unionists should come to the lobby to support Elaine and oppose this disgraceful ruling. Elaine’s overnight care should be restored immediately. A defeat for Elaine is a defeat for us all.

Contact ADKC on 0208 960 8888 or at pbsupport@adkc.org.uk

Contact HAFCAC on 07899 752 877 or at hafcac@hotmail.co.uk

Contact DPAC at mail@dpac.uk.net or visit our web site at www.dpac.uk.net

Contact WinVisible on 0207 482 2496 (voice & minicom) or at win@winvisible.org

Gordon Brown wanted to be “fair” about benefits, but he brought in Employment Support Allowance – the main purpose was to get disabled people off expensive incapacity benefit and into cheap unemployment.
But that isn’t enough un-fairness for the Conservative led coalition government: their new definition of fair seems to be to introduce medical assessments for DLA by doctors who work for the Benefits system – we already have that – benefits doctors go out and visit disabled people and decide they shouldn’t get the benefits. Continue Reading

A British Diplomat praised for her work promoting disability rights as a diplomat in Poland, has had her new posting as Britain’s deputy ambassador to Kazakhstan revoked, after Foreign Officie officials decided that her deafness makes it too expensive for her to work abroad.
The Equality and Human Rights commision is taking up her case.
But this signals an interesting approach by a Government that – in oppositiion, said that disabled people’s equality was safe in their hands.
Overcoming disabling barriers can be expensive, but the Disability Discrimination Act looks at the resources of the organisation when deciding whether the cost of removing barriers or providing aids and adaptations, is prohibitive and can be refused.
It seems a clear indication of the Government’s continued intention for poorer and “less equal” groups to bear the main burden of the Government cuts.
After all, a Government that is still paying MP expenses for TVs, up to £24,222 for rent/housing costs, an annual Communications Allowance of £10,400, and up to £37,281 to each MP for staff costs.
Readers may also remember an item in the news that foreign secretary William Hague was employing 3 Special Advisors, but apparently, paying for the lip speakers that Jane Cordell uses to do the job she was selected for is too expensive.
The EHRC must win this case, or the hard won rights of Disabled people to live and work as equals will have been effectively repealed.

Sri Lankan spin bowler Mutiah Muralitharan has retired from Test cricket after an 8 wicket haul to win the match yesterday, and taske his total test wickets to a record breaking 800! Murali was a wizard with the cricket ball who was accused of throwing by Australian umpires – tests proved this accusation completely unfounded – the Aussie umpires had failed to take account that Murali was born with an impairment in his bowling arm – so a great and wily test bowler who introduced us to the bamboozling dosra ball, overcame poverty, disability, and discrimination, to be the greatest test wicket taker – Murali we salute you!

Access to the law is not equal when it comes to mentally ill people – this seems to be the conclusion drawn in recent reports that while a person with a mental health condition is 20% more liekly to be the victim of crime, the Crown Prosecution Service is much less likely to take the case to Court if the victim has or has had mental health problems.

According to BBC Radio 4′s Today Programe, in one case the CPS dropped the case of someone who had last had mental health issues 20 years ago.

The Disability Discrimination Act has been on the books for 14 years – how long before disabled people get the most basic of rights?

Disabled Access: to boldly go where everyone has gone before

…where everyone has gone before.

You might recognise the slogan as a variation on Star Trek’s “To Boldly go where no one has gone before”. It used to be “To boldly go where no man has gone before”, but it was recognised that excluding women was backward thinking, and didn’t refelct a more equal society. But it seems that in the cinemas, that equal society does not extend to disabled people.

A disabled cinema goer from Streatham, has found it impossible to boldly go as far as his local cinema to see a Star Trek film.
His local movie house – the Streatham Odeon – has twiced asked him to leave on the basis that his wheelchair is a “fire hazard”.
This is from a cinema chain whose turnover is 2008 was over £11,000,000, they are a major concern, and should know better.

It seems that the Governement still has a great deal of work to do in educating business owners.

Although disabled people might argue that after 14 years of the Disability Discrimination Act, and 10 years where service providers had to remove physical barriers to disabled people’s access, the time has come for the Government to take a more active policing apporach, and not just rely on the good will of businesses or the commitment of disabled individuals to take a business to Court to try to get equal access.

Parliament yesterday hosted a discussion on how some airlines now charge for oxygen, and how that discriminates against disabled people. After recieving a number of complaints, the only airline to drop the charges is Emirate Airlines.

The junior Minister, Paul Clark, noted that the Department of Transport’s code of practice “Access to Air Travel for Disabled Persons and Persons with Reduced Mobility” states in part 7:

“All cabin crew, including the flight crew, must receive disability awareness training. For cabin crew, this should be refreshed in line with training in safety procedures.”

As if that makes any difference – I was on a RyanAir Plane (hangs head in shame) last year when they started taxiing out to the runway. a man stood up and said his wheelchair user Dad had not been brought onto the plane. The staff told him to sit down so that the plane could take off, and not to worry, because his wheelchair was in the baggage compartment. so not only had they left the wheelchair user behind, but they had taken his wheelchair from him. They said he’d have to catch another plane as they would miss their take-off window.

We had to stage a mini-revolt, encouraging other passengers to stand in the aisle, so that the plane had to stop, before they would turn back to pick up the wheelchair-using passenger.

I’m sure many cabin crew can say “disability” in many languages, but I’m very doubtful that their awareness extends beyond that.

What  is the likelihood that Parliament is truly commited to equality for disabled people?

Even in prison, disabled people are treated worse than other prisoners, and denied basic human rights.
An independent prisons inspection team has gone twice to Parkhurst prison in the  last 3 years – they reported they were unhappy with conditions in 2006, so went back in December 2008 to find that things had got worse.

A wheelchair user inmate had not had a shower for ONE YEAR and another had not had a shower for 6 months.
This was allowed to occur because staff would not push them to an accessible shower unit.
They would not push them without training (how many of us who have pushed wheelchairs have had any training), and more disgusting still, they refused to go on the training.
Surely these individual prison officers should be prosecuted for so clearly abusing these wheelchair users’ human rights, as well as the authorities being brought to book.

How can the Governement speak convincingly about disabled peoples’ equality, while presiding over such a clear case of disability discrimination and deial of human rights?

New Years Honours Lists – usually a bunch of recently newsworthy celebrities and sportspeople, and a huge list of people you never hear of who are knighted for services to Banking or something equally banal.

This year, the bankers and City dignataries were largely absent – what with ruining the economy and all, and this coupled with the recent Olympic shindig left lots more room for athletes.

In fact every Gold medal winner who wasn’t a paraolympian got some kind of honour. Paraolypian gold medalists were not quite as equal as their non-disabled counterparts though, as only about half of our gold medalists were considered worthy of an honour.

There is absolutely no reason for this. Other than to say that the Politicians who submit names for the New Year Honours List, and the Government who approves the final list, cannot believe that a gold medal won by a paraolympian is equal to the same achievement by an non-disabled athlete in the mainstream olympics.

This is a clear indication that the achievement of disabled people is not as highly valued as that of non-disabled people – we call that prejudice leading to a discriminatory act.

Shape up Government team GB.