CPS and Disability Hate Crime

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Crown Prosecution Service’s approach to prosecuting disability hate crime.

It is nice to speak in this debate under your stewardship, Mr Bone. I welcome the Government’s action plan for tackling hate crime. I know others have been less complimentary because they do not see, for example, a “prevent agenda” for disability hate crime in it. Nevertheless, it is important to hold on to the plan that the Government have produced. “Action Against Hate” sets out that

“Any crime that is motivated by hostility on the grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity can be classed as a hate crime.”

There are three categories of hate crime in legislation: incitement to hatred offences on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation; specific racially and religiously motivated criminal offences, such as common assault; and provisions for enhanced sentencing where a crime is motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity.

It is worth noting that annex A of the plan sets out the College of Policing’s hate crime operational guidance and shared definitions established by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers. That guidance goes into a little more detail for those who will implement the actions on the ground, so to speak. Disability hate crime remains both underreported and under-prosecuted. That needs to change.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that improving the understanding of disability hate crime among prosecutors is an essential step in giving more victims the confidence they need to come forward, as we have seen in other areas?

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will touch on that point a little later.

We are seeing intolerance rising, particularly in relation to disability, which does not lie well in a society where we claim to be liberal and tolerant. I increasingly get the sense of an intolerance to all sorts of people since the referendum—I do not want to bring that issue up, but it is important that we do not pretend that things have not happened and are not happening. In fact, even the most eminent people such as Lord Thomas, the Lord Chief Justice; Sir Terence Etherton, Master of the Rolls; and Lord Justice Sir Philip Sales are not immune to the pervading intolerance stalking the country. I deplore the abuse of those public servants for doing what, at the end of the day, is their job.

Even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said it was “seriously concerned” about British politicians’ rhetoric in the lead-up to and following the referendum. Reports indicated that immediately following the referendum, hate crimes surged by 42% in England and Wales, with a total of 3,076 incidents recorded across the country between 16 and 20 June. That rise was in less than one week, and it almost inevitably raises concerns about hate crime in a broader sense and particular groups’ prospects in the future.

For clarity, the disability hate crime statistics I am about to use are from the CPS’s own website on 13 July 2016. It said:

“The volume of cases referred to the CPS by the police for a charging decision increased from 849 in 2014/15 to 930 in 2015/16, an increase of 9.5%.”

It went on to say that the number of convictions had gone up over the two years from 503 in 2014-15 to 707 last year—a big increase of 40.6%. The conviction rate remained broadly consistent over the two years at 75.1%, which I believe compares with an 83% conviction rate for all other hate crimes. Finally, it said:

“The proportion of successful outcomes arising from guilty pleas was 66.1% in 2014/15 and fell slightly to 63.4% in 2015/16.”

That is the context.

The co-ordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network has stated that those figures underestimate the true scale of the problem due to significant underreporting and believes that as many as 60,000 disability hate crimes could occur annually in the United Kingdom. That is supported by research published by the charity Scope, which has shown that two thirds of disabled people feel they are treated differently because of their disability, and only 40% say the UK is a good place to be a disabled person. That is quite shocking.

Young people with disabilities are particularly vulnerable. The Equality and Humans Rights Commission found that 22% of young people with a disability between the ages of 10 and 15 had been the victim of a crime in the previous 12 months, compared with only 12% of their non-disabled counterparts. Similarly, 35% of those with social or behavioural impairments such as autism, attention deficit disorder or Asperger’s syndrome had found themselves victims of a crime. Young people and those with behavioural impairments commonly fail to report hate crimes out of fear and a lack of confidence, which goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie).

We often forget the long-lasting damage and devastating effect these crimes can have on not only those subject to abuse but their families. In fact, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, said in the media release accompanying the statistics I referred to:

“My message is that a hate crime is exactly that—a crime—and will not be ignored. Hate crime creates fear and has a devastating impact on individuals and communities. Nobody should have to go about their day to day life in fear of being attacked.”

Many victims of hate crime suffer long-lasting fear and anxiety, which has a detrimental impact on their physical and mental health, leaving them cut off and in many cases afraid to leave their house or go to public places.

The Disability Hate Crime Network found through a survey of 100 disabled people that the most common place for disability hate crime to happen is on the high street, followed closely by public transport. Others mentioned the local shop, the pub and social media—social media crops up time and again. The research found that the majority of perpetrators are white and that over half the attacks are conducted by groups of people, rather than just one individual, so there is ganging up. Furthermore, 75% of disability hate crime defendants are men. These hate crimes include verbal abuse and physical abuse, with instances of disabled people being pushed out of their wheelchairs, blocked from accessing disabled ramps and being denied a seat or space on public transport. What kind of people do those things? The research also found that a large amount of the underlying motivation for disability hate crimes is the view that disabled people are on benefits and are therefore lazy and “scroungers”. That is what the research found—it is not an opinion; the evidence is there.

It is telling that disability hate crime has gone up in the past five years, in parallel with the perceived, if not actual, robust approach of the Department of Work and Pensions to disabled people and changes to, for example, the work capability assessment scheme. There have also been regular television series with a morbid fixation, such as “Saints and Scroungers”, “On Benefits and Proud” or “Benefits Street”; the list goes on. I do not want to politicise the issue, but there may be—I will go no further than that—a link between the rhetoric from some, which appears to single out those on disability living allowance and insinuate that a large proportion of those on benefits are somehow cheating the system, and the rise in disability hate crime in the United Kingdom today. There is a danger of going back to the deserving and undeserving poor, but no one knows which is which because of the environment we are operating in. Whether we like it or not, this is a milieu in which hate crime flourishes. We need less rhetoric and a more concentrated effort to raise awareness of disability, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for South Down indicated, and of other sorts of hate crime and to provide better support and guidance so that people can recognise and report hate crime without fear, concern, trepidation or worry. National Hate Crime Awareness Week, which is usually in mid-October, creates a good opportunity to do that.

We need to do more to raise awareness of disabilities that are not physical, focusing on those involving social or behavioural impairments that affect memory, learning, understanding or concentration because people with such disabilities also find themselves victims of crime far too often.

There is room for best practice to be shared, particularly that from areas that have piloted schemes to help disabled people to report hate crimes. Leonard Cheshire Disability piloted a particularly successful programme in Northern Ireland. The Be Safe, Stay Safe programme provides support and education for carers and disabled people on their rights and how best to report hate crimes. In 2014-15, the scheme, in partnership with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, provided support in 126 incidents of hate crime against disabled people.

The Be Safe, Stay Safe programme uses social media to reach out to disabled people who have been victims of disability hate crimes, including online hate crimes. It launched the Support to Report campaign to raise awareness of disability hate crime with allied professionals, clinicians, social care workers and others in the disability sector, as well as MPs and Members of the Legislative Assembly, which I am sure my hon. Friends are aware of. I would like to know whether the Government would consider replicating such a scheme more widely. After all, the Government’s current action plan states:

“Despite good progress since the last Action Plan, hate crime against disabled people remains a particular challenge. We will look at current best practice examples in tackling disability hate crime and work with partner organisations and the police to promote safety for disabled people.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I say what a joy it is to follow the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)? We recall his energies as the Minister for Disabled People and thank him for the good work he put in. It is good to see him here contributing to the debate in a different capacity. It was also a pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) set the scene so well. This subject is close to my heart and to his, and to the hearts of all who are participating in today’s debate.

This issue has seen some traction recently. More people now understand that to discriminate or target someone due to disability is as bad as targeting someone due to race or religion. It is not acceptable. In this debate we are focusing on hate crimes targeted specifically at those who are disabled. It is just as despicable to pick on someone because of that as it is to pick on someone because of their race or religion. Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 applies to sentencing when the court is considering the seriousness of an offence in which the offender, either at the time of committing the offence or immediately before or after doing so, demonstrated hostility towards the victim based on the victim’s physical or mental disability, or presumed disability; or the offence was motivated by hostility towards persons who have a physical or mental disability or a particular physical or mental disability.

How much those offences rile me personally and each every one of us in this House—those who have spoken before me and those who will speak after me. Such actions are horrible, despicable and clearly unacceptable. When we read about them in the press and in the media, or when we hear about them from constituents who tell us what happens to them, our response is to feel so angry. So again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate and for giving us all the opportunity to participate in it.

In cases such as I mentioned, the court must treat the fact that the offence was committed in any of those circumstances as an aggravating factor, and must state that in open court. The amount by which the sentence will be increased will depend on the circumstances of the case and the seriousness of the aggravation. There has been an impetus to prosecute more such crimes to send a message, very clearly, that they will not be tolerated in decent society. Can the Solicitor General tell us how many such crimes have been prosecuted in the United Kingdom?

To imagine that someone would be targeted because of their disability is beyond despicable. For that reason, I welcome the news that the CPS has prosecuted a record number of hate crimes—15,442—in the past year, which is a 4.8% rise on the previous year of 2014-15.

[Ms Ritchie]

The hon. Gentleman, my friend from my neighbouring constituency, is making a compelling case. Does he agree that the Government could demonstrate their commitment to tackling hate crime by publishing a response to the Law Commission’s 2014 consultation paper, which considered extending existing offences? We would like to hear from the Solicitor General on that.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady, who is a friend as well, for her intervention. She has outlined the issue clearly, and I hope that the Minister responds to her point.

The number of prosecutions for the year 2014-15 marked a 4.7% increase on 2013-14, so there has been an increase in the number of prosecutions for the past three years, which indicates that there is a commitment from the Minister’s Department and the CPS to make changes and prosecute these crimes. I will come to more figures later in my speech, but the number of crimes is enormous. The number of prosecutions is just the scrape of the scab, the tip of the iceberg or whatever other descriptive phrase we might use. The CPS’s eighth hate crime report details a

“41% increase in disability hate crime prosecutions compared to 2014/15”.

Even online hate crimes are being successfully prosecuted, and this message must be spread widely: people cannot hide their prejudice or hatred behind a keyboard and a laptop and think that it will protect them. It does not, it cannot and it never should. More than four in five prosecuted hate crimes result in a conviction, with more than 73% of those charged pleading guilty. In 2015-16, recorded sentence uplifts reached 33.8%, which shows a good use of the legislation for what it was designed to do.

I thank the Minister and his Department for what has been done, because it is positive, but I will outline something that I have said, that other Members have said and that those who speak after me today will say. In a written question some time ago, I asked the Attorney General

“what progress his Department has made on providing disability hate crime training for all prosecutors; and what improvements this training will bring to conviction rates.”

It is important to have training in place so that we have people who know how to respond. The answer was:

“Mandatory training relating to disability hate crime was delivered, across the Crown Prosecution Service, between September 2015 and January 2016. Prosecutors will deploy the knowledge gained from the training in the course of prosecutions thereby improving performance. The CPS are enhancing the support provided to prosecutors in dealing with crimes committed against disabled people. They are reviewing their policy and legal guidance on disability hate crime, which will provide assurance to the public of how the CPS intends to deal with such crimes.”

Following on from that, I ask the Minister to provide an update on whether that training has been a success or whether it needs improving. I would like him to update us on where we are and on what improvements could be made to make the training even better.

Other figures have not been so encouraging. The number of hate crime cases referred by the police to the CPS for decision in 2014 was 14,376—an increase of 2.2% on the previous year. However, in 2015-16, the number of referrals decreased by 9.6% to just under 13,000. I ask respectfully whether the Minister can give us some indication of why that happened. Is it because police resources are not focused on disability hate crime? If they are and there is a fall-down, I ask him to let us know so that changes can be made to address the issue. The optimist in us all would love to believe that the decrease in the number of referrals by the police to the CPS is due to more people recognising the boundaries of how they can treat others, but that is probably not the reason behind the drop.

The hon. Member for Bootle mentioned Northern Ireland’s Be Safe, Stay Safe campaign. Just over a year ago, back in October last year, I made the House aware in a question—I think it was to the Solicitor General—that the Police Service of Northern Ireland had launched an online campaign after 44 disability hate crimes were recorded over a six-month period. The PSNI contacted the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, which, as the Solicitor General will know, has set up an advocacy scheme to help disabled people access the criminal justice system. Will the Solicitor General consider similar action? He responded positively to that question, in which I underlined what we are doing in Northern Ireland.

As the hon. Member for Bootle said, if something good is happening in the United Kingdom—legislation or whatever it might be—whatever the debate is, we should all learn from it. We are doing something good in Northern Ireland, as the hon. Gentleman clearly, gently and supportively said. What we are doing in Northern Ireland is a response to the general public’s request to put positive legislation in the hands of the police to make it happen and make a difference.

More must be done to ensure that disabled people are aware of the rights that are enshrined in law already and, more importantly, that they have the support they need to approach the police and to give evidence to further their case. Anecdotal evidence suggests that more than 60,000 incidents of disability hate crime are committed in England and Wales over a year, so I want to ask about prosecutions. I am thankful that the CPS has made more than 15,000 prosecutions, but if there are 60,000 incidents of disability hate crime, we are a long way from getting to where we need to be.

I know that the Minister is absolutely and totally committed to making the changes that are needed, as his demeanour and his response to the questions that he has raised will indicate. There is a chasm between 60,000 and 15,000, and I hope the Minister will respond to that point. More must be done to ensure that those two figures are more closely aligned. That is not to say that every off-the-cuff comment is worthy of prosecution, but I firmly believe that many crimes are being committed and not reported, which means that there is no help for the victims. The House must address that.

We must look at how the message can be made clearer that disability hate crimes exist and are not acceptable, that victims will be not further traumatised but helped and supported, and that justice can be served without it being at victims’ expense. Could that be done in conjunction with the Department for Education? Could part of the process involve co-operation with media channels to spread awareness? I am not one who watches the soaps on TV. I could tell hon. Members nothing about the storylines and little about who the characters are, but my wife loves those programmes and could tell hon. Members the details of every character’s life. Some of those soaps could be used for good. One example is “Coronation Street”. Although I am not an avid watcher of the programme—indeed, I do not watch it—I understand that it portrays the issue of Down’s syndrome. There are ways of using the media and the TV for good. Perhaps the Minister could look into that possibility.

We must ask our ourselves whether we have done all we can to encourage the process of making people aware of protection, how serious disability hate crime is, and how seriously it will be treated. To our shame, I do not believe that we have. I implore the Minister to do more to take the matter further and bring about real change. Yes, we have done much good and made gigantic leaps forward, but we have not finished. More can be done.

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response, which I know will be positive, and I thank the hon. Member for Bootle for giving us all a chance to participate in the debate.