Right to sign denied

By Elizabeth Choppin

Deaf people are being denied basic rights in the criminal justice system, says a campaigner.

Diana Smith, chair of the Legal Issues Group of the Association of Lipspeakers, said deaf and hearing-impaired people are sometimes hand-cuffed with their hands behind their backs or appear in court without a language service professional (LSP).

Others spend hours in cells without access to an LSP, and BSL-speakers have no legal right to have their statement recorded visually through an interpreter.
Ms Smith said many deaf people have to wait to give evidence during an investigation because of a lack of both trained LSPs and police funding.

One police officer was unable to find an interpreter for a deaf woman who had been assaulted, causing a six-week wait to investigate
the allegations.

Ms Smith called for improvements in a consultation on changes to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, to be published in March.

A Home Office spokesperson said that her comments were “helpful” and it was aiming to meet soon with her and “other stakeholders”.