‘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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On Wednesday 27^th July disability rights campaigners from the anti-assisted suicide group Distant Voices, will stage a mock execution of a wheelchair user outside Parliament.

The Distant Voices stunt is aimed at giving greater publicity to a different view on assisted suicide.

A lot has been said in the press over the past through years by disabled people who want the right to die at a time of their choosing, without partners or friends getting punished for it; Distant Voices believes not enough thought is being given to the possibility that this might lead to the involuntary euthanasia of disabled people.

The protest will start at 1pm at Old Palace Yard from where campaigners wearing surgical masks will process by drumbeat to a scaffold where one wheelchair user will be doused in fake blood.

The excellent people who brought us www.theyworkforyou.com, the website that tells you what MPs have been saying and writing, have set up a website called “what do they know?” that helps you to make or explore freedom of informations requests to public bodies like the Government or your local council.

You can use their site to make the freedom of information request, or to read what other reqests have been made.

You choose the public authority that you would like information from, then write a brief note describing what you want to know. We then send your request to the public authority. Any response they make is automatically published on the website for you and anyone else to find and read.

the public body has to reply either giving you an answer or giving you a valid legal reason why the information is confidential.

The site is called what do they know

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

The head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Equality and Diversity Unit says the CPS needs to raise it’s game on disability hate crime.

This follows numerous reports on this site and eleshwhere of examples of the CPS failing to prosecute cases where disabled people have been bullied.

With a new spotlight on disability hate crime because of the recent widely-reported deaths of disabled hate crime victims, the police CPS and other agencies realise it’s time to do better for our disabled citizens.

Here in wolverhampton disabled people have had a patchy response when reporting hate crime and bullying to the authorities, ranging from people getting the support they need, to no response whatsoever, to being told to stay indoors to avoid bullying.

If you are a disabled Wolverhampton citizen who is being bullied or may be a victim of hate crime, contact One Voice for advocate support to help you to get a satisfactory solution>>

As yet another disabled person dies as a result of bullying in their homes, are authorities doing enough?

Quiet enjoyment of property, a right to live free of fear, a right to protection from crime – these seem to be pretty basic human rights that disabled people are not being entitled to.

In the most recent case where a man with a learning disability collapsed and died after continued and sustained harassment at his home from local youths, is yet another case where police have been informed and involved, but the disabled person has died anyway.

Police in this case were keen to point out in interviews that they had “done a lot of work” with the victim, including waiting in his house, installing CCTV cameras etc. The bullies’ response to the CCTV cameras was to wear hoods and balaclavas – we know, because we saw it on tv – so what happened then? What did police do when they saw that footage, surely they could have had regular patrols – arrests under hate crime legislation or public order offences.

I can see how the bullies made it difficult for the police, i can see how the police took positive action like the CCTV cameras, but i cannot see how the man was still allowed to be subject to bullying on a regular basis until he died.

Nobody can be complacent here – the police cannot congratulate themselves on “hard work” when the victim dies, but although the failure to protect the individual and to maintain civil order and neighbourhood safety is a police responsibility, it is also a responsibility for local councils and housing authorities, for local schools and neighbours, and for local communities.

How much damage was done when we all so readily embraced the idea that there is no such thing as communities? Surely as human beings we have a responsibility to our neighbours, but we stopped doing things at community level, stopped knowing who are neighbours are, made it that much more difficult for us to intervene when someone in our street needs help or is being bullied.

Perhaps we need more opportunities to meet and socialise with the people accross the road or corridor, the people down the street or in the next block, because history tells us that when communities band together to let bullies know that an injury to one is an injury to all, they soon stop coming around.