Disability & Hate crime have you been a victim?

Jessilu

I've put this post in the arms as well where it may get more views, but I thought I'd come along and ask the ''experts'' so to speak!

I was appalled to read this.....http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8437523.stm

....on the news this morning.

I thought that incidences like the much publicised Pilkington case, though tragic, were rare. It seems however that hate crime against the disabled is common practise? Why?...it's beyond me

Have any of you with disabilities had a similar experience, how wide spread is this?

misty_blue_2

yes i have and still am suffering this.
It started 5 years ago, when i and some others were targetted by some youths.
Had my windows put through numerous times, fences and gates smashed, eggs and dog dirt thrown at my windows.
we installed cctv, got pictures and tapes full of evidence and even as a gesture of goodwill met with one of the thugs doing this.
He admitted it was because i am disabled in front of the police officer who was with him.
Nothing has changed and nothing has happened to these thugs making my life hell.
I am on the list to move but a points system for housing makes this near on impossible, afer 5 years i am still waiting and still suffering abuse.
Winter and summer alike i am having to cope with this.
I am bedridden with MS and a complete bag of nerves.
I have written to MP's a but no help.

Jessilu

Hi Misty:hello: this is a copy of my reply to you on the ''arms'' forum...



Misty , as this is a very topical issue, and the police are saying they're anxious to prevent another Pilkinton case occuring, have you tried striking while the iron is hot and contacting the BBC on the address in the link I posted, and all the media?!!

I'm so sorry to hear that you're going through this, If your local or even national newspapers were to take up your case, p'haps your local constabulary might start jumping to attention!!

angelvoice222

yes i have,
i have been beaten up, had abuse shouted at me been spat at.
i have tourettes syndrom and in one case i was arrested and given a crim reccord because of my condition and all because i was bullied.
people who bully others especialy those of us with problems are the lowest of the low, just wish the police did more, at one time i was questioned by a police officer as to what a disability hate crime was and if it existed

misty_blue_2

angelvoice222 wrote: »

yes i have,
i have been beaten up, had abuse shouted at me been spat at.
i have tourettes syndrom and in one case i was arrested and given a crim reccord because of my condition and all because i was bullied.
people who bully others especialy those of us with problems are the lowest of the low, just wish the police did more, at one time i was questioned by a police officer as to what a disability hate crime was and if it existed

angelvoice so sorry to hear what you have been through.
sending you hugs
misty

Jessilu

angelvoice222 wrote: »

yes i have,
i have been beaten up, had abuse shouted at me been spat at.
i have tourettes syndrom and in one case i was arrested and given a crim reccord because of my condition and all because i was bullied.
people who bully others especialy those of us with problems are the lowest of the low, just wish the police did more, at one time i was questioned by a police officer as to what a disability hate crime was and if it existed

Will you report this to the BBC on the link..even if you're past experience makes you believe nothing will improve, there is always a chance, and unless you report it to everyone you can think of, nothing ever will get better, if not for you then for someone else!

((hugs)) to you

Trialia

It does happen. I was assaulted by a teenager about six months ago, then a different pair of teenage girls a few weeks before Christmas stole my walking stick from me in the street and ran away with it

Jessilu

Trialia,

What happens..?...I mean does a teenager just come up and start attacking you in the street?...how do they do this?

Please don't answer if it upsets you, but I'm having a problem imagining a solitary teen coming up and attacking someone for being already ''injured''...it's just not computing with me!!:mad:

The teens with the stick must have been horrid for you as well, does it ever put you off the idea of going out?

Trialia

Jessilu,

The first one, I was on a bus between Rochdale and Manchester, sitting with my dad in the front of the top level (he'd helped me up the stairs, as I can't do them alone). Had my stick in hand, etc. and this teenage boy starts mouthing off at me from the back. (Not many people on.) I asked him politely to leave me alone, and instead he started throwing things at me. Change wrapped up in newspaper, mostly, and he threw hard. I was in a five-day flare after that little incident (my dad went down and told the driver, and the kid got kicked off by security at the next bus station).

The girls, I was sitting having a rest on a bench with my stick, reading my book for a few minutes, and they came up and started talking to me, asking why I needed it and so on. They were nice to start with, so I chatted with them, then one of them decided to grab the stick and her friend ran off with her with it and kept looking back at me, laughing, and shouting for me to follow them when they knew that it wasn't possible for me to come anywhere near keeping up. A man saw what they were doing and grabbed it off the girl when she wasn't expecting him to, so I got it back, but I don't think they would have given it back. They couldn't have been more than five or six years younger than me (I'm 23).

It does put me off the idea of going out for days and weeks at a time, sometimes. Especially when those girls actually ran into me again a couple of hours later and started heading in my direction - I was lucky enough to be very near the door to my chapel then, as I was waiting for my choir practice, and I dodged in there, and because people were around who knew me, they stopped. But I was scared to go out again after.

Zziggi

Trialia wrote: »

It does happen. I was assaulted by a teenager about six months ago, then a different pair of teenage girls a few weeks before Christmas stole my walking stick from me in the street and ran away with it

I can't believe that kids would actually think it was funny to run away with a person's walking stick! If it happened to my husband, I'd go mental!! What sort of morons are school churning out these days?

misty_blue_2

Zziggi wrote: »

I can't believe that kids would actually think it was funny to run away with a person's walking stick! If it happened to my husband, I'd go mental!! What sort of morons are school churning out these days?

in the flat i used to live in, my doors were not wide enough ,so my OH had to take me out and carry me into the flat,
on a rare trip outside my OH carried me back into the house, then went to get my wheelchair and it had gone, someone had nicked it.
took me months to get another one, and i was totally immobile for all that time.
Makes me so mad :mad: