As she lay dying

Mark Lakinski, brother of Christine Lakinski, the disabled woman who was urinated on while she lay dying on her doorstep in Hartlepool last July, has given Disability Now a harrowing account of the last 16 minutes of her life.

His account will be used as the foreword to a major report on disability hate crime, produced by Scope, the UK Disabled People’s Council and Disability Now, to be published this summer.

He says that three of his sister’s neighbours found her motionless on her doorstep. One neighbour was Anthony Anderson, who was getting ready to celebrate his birthday.

“These were her neighbours… However, Christine was disabled and what happened next, I believe, was purely down to that fact.”

Mr Lakinski says that Anderson shouted: “I’ll show you how to deal with her.” “He then took centre stage for the next 16 minutes, applauded and egged on by the other two. It started with a kick to Christine’s feet which got no response from her, so a bucket of water was produced from Birthday Boy’s house and thrown over Christine, who did in fact groan and move slightly at this.”

Then her attackers filmed their assault. “The final act was for Birthday Boy to pull back his towel and urinate all over Christine as she lay dying, all recorded on the mobile phone for later entertainment…She was left where she lay.”

Mr Lakinski adds: “If an ambulance had been called, when Christine collapsed, she might have died with dignity and with pain relief in hospital and not on a dirty pavement, violated at the moment of her death by a braying bunch of louts who, I firmly believe, saw her as an easy target because she was disabled.”

He concludes: “No mention of disability hate crime was ever brought up by officials dealing with this law case although Christine was visibly disabled.”