Phillips joins hate crime battle

By Cathy Reay

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has unveiled a three-tier plan to help combat harassment and assault of disabled people in the UK.

Chairman Trevor Phillips announced on Wednesday that the Commission would no longer tolerate disabled people feeling threatened and fearful in their everyday lives.

The EHRC’s plan for improvement will look at the following areas: assessing how well public bodies are working to combat hostile behaviour towards disabled people, using the new equality bill as a basis for their legal framework, helping to fund the work of independent advocacy groups and their work in providing disabled people with equal access to justice, and working with criminal agencies to remove disabled people's barriers in taking legal remedies against hostility and hate crime.

Phillips said: “We all want disabled people to be able to go out and play a full part in their community but too often a trip to the pub, the shops, the swimming pool or work is such an ordeal that it seems easier to narrow their horizons, to stay indoors.

"This is a hidden catastrophe that we need to address.”

The plan was drawn from research delivered in a new EHRC report, ‘Promoting the Safety and Security of Disabled People’,  in which disabled interviewees describe their experiences of targeted violence and verbal abuse.

The research showed that 75% of disabled people are four times more likely to be victims of crime compared to non-disabled people. It also found that 47 per cent of disabled people had either experienced physical abuse or had witnessed physical abuse of a disabled companion.
30 April 2009