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 | You and Yours - Transcript ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 |
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| TX: 29.05.03 – SHOULD HATE CRIMES AGAINST DISABLED PEOPLE LEAD TO LONGER SENTENCES? |
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| PRESENTER: Liz Barclay BARCLAY If you're attacked or harassed because of your race or religion the offender will get a longer than usual sentence. But if you're attacked because you're disabled the sentence won't be extended in the same way. Now the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Disability Rights Commission are calling on the Government to change that. Disability campaigners believe it will make a difference to victims of crime, like Jan Nesbitt from Putney who's visually impaired and uses a guide dog. NESBITT I was sitting on the train and I'd gone about two stops, a group of four youths got on and they sat across the carriage from me and first of all they started barking at the dog and I just said to them would you mind not doing that please, it's frightening her. They then started being abusive to me and then they started throwing food and other things at the dog and I asked them again to stop. They then went actually very quiet and I thought they'd taken some notice of me and the next thing I knew, it was one of those horrible old slam door trains, and what they were doing, one of them was hanging out of the window of the door which was behind me and banging on the window and it took me ages to work out where this sound was and then they said - Can't you see who it is you blind da da da - and eventually he came back, started yelling at me being very, very abusive and it was at that stage a lady further down the carriage came to try and help me. Someone then went to get the guard, when the guard eventually came he didn't ask me anything at all, he talked to them and they were just saying well tell her to tell you what she's seen, I bet she hasn't seen anything, she can't give evidence ha ha ha, with a number of expletives between them. He then disappeared and they went out of the door behind me and I heaved a sigh of relief I have to say because I thought well that's it, good, they've gone, he has actually frightened them off. But the next thing I knew I heard a hissing sound behind me, the door opened slightly and they put through it a fire extinguisher which they then turned on both the dog and me. BARCLAY Do you think that they actually carried out the attack because of the disability? NESBITT I do in that instance. I think they saw an opportunity. I can't say hand on heart that they wouldn't have done it to anybody else but I think they saw an opportunity there and they saw the dog. I'm certain that the disability was a contributory factor in that instance. BARCLAY How long did it take to get over this? NESBITT Well if I'm on a train now where I hear lots of screaming youths or groups of young lads or whatever I still feel very, very twitchy and I never was before, I was always a confident traveller, never a complacent traveller but I was always a confident traveller. BARCLAY What about the dog? NESBITT She was never quite the same, she was never that keen on going to places that were new and again if there were groups of people on a train making a loud noise she would get very, very twitchy and upset. And ultimately, it wasn't the only thing but it did contribute to me retiring her earlier than I would have done. BARCLAY Jan Nesbitt. We're joined by Nicholas Russell who's campaigns officer at the RNIB. Nicholas Russell the Criminal Justice Bill is currently going through Parliament, now you say that you want to ensure that sentences are greater where an offence is disability aggravated, if you could get through as part of this bill what difference would it make? RUSSELL Well I think any right minded person would be appalled by what we've just heard, alas it's not a unique incident. The Disability Rights Commission conducted a survey last year in which a quarter of disabled people say they'd had experience of harassment related to their disability and from one in five of those this is on a regular basis. We believe that this would send the right signal to those who want to perpetrate such horrific offences and that the voluntary approach currently adopted by courts clearly isn't working if we have this number of cases going on. BARCLAY Well we did ask the Home Office to put up a spokesperson, they couldn't but they sent us a statement and they said: "The Government is in principle opposed to the creation of offences aggravated by such factors. They make the law unnecessarily complicated, the criminal law already contains a wide range of powers to deal with violent behaviour and harassment but in passing sentence for a violent offence the court must take into account all the circumstances of that offence." So all attacks and harassment are already covered by protection from the Harassment Act why is that not enough? RUSSELL Well firstly this works in this country for attacks aggravated by racial or religious hatred and there is a law covering disability harassment, similar to what we want in this country, already that works in the United States. The Protection from Harassment Act gives a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment whereas the protection offered from the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 offers maximum sentence of 14 years and that's a big contrast in sentences. BARCLAY I know that these kind of attacks just don't happen to visually impaired people but in the case of visually impaired people you were actually asking also that police should make much more use of voice IDs in situations like this, so that prosecutions can be brought. What kind of response have you had to that suggestion? RUSSELL When the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, wrote to me he said that there were problems with this but he thought they were overcomable and asked his scientific advisors and officials to look at it as a matter or urgency and said he would get back to me. Our director general is going to be seeking an urgent meeting with the Home Secretary to discuss the issues around the Criminal Justice Bill and we hope that we might receive an update on that issue at such a meeting. BARCLAY Nicholas Russell from the RNIB thank you very much for joining us. Back to the You and Yours homepage The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for external websites |
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