Davies case ruled not to be hate crime

The three criminals responsible for torturing and imprisoning Kevin Davies, the young man with epilepsy who was tortured and kept in a shed by three so-called friends until he died in September 2006, will not have their sentences lengthened or the case against them reopened, Disability Now has learned.

Elizabeth James, the mother of Kevin Davies, has been pressing for the case to be reopened following the publication of the coroners report in February this year.

He said that he was “satisfied” that Mr Davies died following blunt trauma to the head. But police and prosecutors have told Mrs James, at a meeting with her MP, Mark Harper, that they are not convinced.

Adrian Foster, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Gloucestershire, said: “I have recently met with Kevin’s family, as is our policy in such cases, to answer their questions and explain the difficult decisions that we sometimes have to make as prosecutors. While there was no doubt that Kevin was cruelly mistreated by the people he had called his friends, the medical evidence that we had could not show incontrovertibly that Kevin’s death came about as a direct result of that mistreatment, rather than as a result of his epilepsy. This would mean that a jury, properly directed by the judge, could not have found the defendants guilty of murder or manslaughter. In sentencing the defendants, the Judge gave some credit for their Guilty pleas.”

"The fact that such an awful crime was committed against a person with a disability does not make the crime automatically a Disability Hate Crime."

"In order to satisfy a court that an offence was a Disability Hate Crime under S146 Criminal Justice Act 2003 the prosecution must prove that the crime was motivated by hostility towards the victim based upon their disability."

"There was no evidence whatsoever in this case that the terrible conduct of these three defendants was in any way motivated by hatred or dislike for Kevin because of his epilepsy."

Mrs James told Disability Now that she was “so angry” about the decision.

She added: “It is unthinkable that this could happen in this day and age, in a country that has the best justice system in the world…there can’t be a worse scenario than someone dying, can there?”

Anne Novis, speaking for the United Kingdom's Disabled People’s Council said UKDPC, as a membership organisation for all disabled people's organisations in the UK, views the murder of Kevin Davies as a disability hate crime.

"How anyone can say that this murder was not caused by the spiteful and viscious attacks by the murderers because he was a disabled person is beyond understanding and will be challenged by us all at every level," she said.

Mark Harper MP, Conservative Party disability spokesman and the constituency MP for Kevin Davies and his family, was also disappointed.

He said: “This is obviously very disappointing not just for Kevin’s family, but for the local community. We have worked very hard to get justice for Kevin but, despite all the facts of the case, the people responsible for a chain of events which led to his death will only serve relatively short sentences. My hope is that no other family has to experience events anything like these in the future.”