Disabled People

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to take part in a debate led by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. I welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who spoke eloquently about the challenges and progress of disabled people in our country. I look forward to hearing her and working with her more closely. There are two very good farms in Tower Hamlets that maybe we can visit together so as to reassure her that there is green space among us. Today I will make some observations as a mother, as well as a professional in the field, although there is a temptation to address so many outstanding issues that befall carers of people with disabilities.

In whichever manner we look at enabling the voices of vulnerable adults and young people, we cannot underestimate the serious lack of progress, especially for those who are beholden to our institutions for day-to-day services and care. I feel strongly that many in their thousands, even as we speak, remain unsafe at the hands of those who care for them. This is the last bastion of secrecy regarding sexual and physical abuse yet to be addressed, although I accept that we have been privy, through social media, to secret recordings of abuse of vulnerable adults taking place in a number of our institutions. As the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, said, the conspiracy of silence is deafening.

I say this with a great deal of pain. Two decades have passed since I withdrew my son from education just after he was 16 years of age. There were years of toing and froing between different education institutions and the NewVIc sixth form. He had come home crying on numerous occasions, but one day he was utterly distressed and absolutely refused to board the bus to that place where he adamantly felt unsafe. He had returned home with soiled pants on many occasion. I never received any explanation. I was told that they knew best, that I was expecting too much, and so on.

That day I asked my son for the umpteenth time for an explanation. He said that John, his aide, had hurt him in the toilet. I shall refrain from discussing or detailing any further distressing information he then disclosed to me. I took him to the vice-principal the following day and asked for an explanation. Although she “felt” my anxiety, she found it implausible that my son could possibly be speaking the truth. I knew her well. Although she was highly educated, and had knowledge of the law and of her obligation and duty to protect, in fact she was arrogant and all but ignorant of basic human values and decency. More importantly, even my son as a disabled person had rights. She could not comprehend that a paedophile could have filtered through to her staff team working in disguise as a carer with vulnerable young adults. She did not accept that abuse of a person with a disability in her charge was possible.

Of course, I am referring to a time, not in the distant past, when such things were denied, and it was not accepted or acceptable to speak of unspeakable abuse of trust or of sexual or physical abuse of people within our institutions. This was a fact. So my “suspicion”, despite that fact that I was a local authority social worker, could be dismissed as a preposterous notion coming from an overbearingly anxious mother. Noble Lords are all too familiar with me being overbearing on some required occasions. They will also agree that, when facing such serious detriment to one’s child’s well-being, a little leniency for anxiety should be accounted for. What irks me and haunts me to this day, two decades later, is the simplicity with which my concerns—indeed, allegations—were summarily dismissed. The teacher in that powerful place had not for one nanosecond considered the possibility that my son with learning disabilities could have been assaulted and that he was speaking the truth. She refused to accept any responsibility for ascertaining the facts or investigating the matter. I withdrew my son from there and all other educational institutions and no one since has bothered about his or our well-being.

Maybe we will say that we are in a better place these days, that tolerating abuse would not be allowed today and that we have begun to acknowledge that there are predators who deliberately seek out opportunities to work in our institutions which allow access to vulnerable people, particularly those whose communication skills mean that they may not be able to explain abuse in a normal way. Indeed, we might have examples of many institutional failures.

I have confidence that such allegations these days would not go unattended and that a full investigation is now mandatory. In fact, it may have been then—laws to protect have always been in place. Fair and just implementation has always depended on the proverbial gatekeepers and on individual leadership to produce good practice. I have worked in the same borough since, and spent time as a team leader in social services in teams where services to disabled people were taken very seriously.

What may not have changed is the experience of vulnerable adults and young people and children with predatory sexual and physical abuse, particularly those with learning disabilities and communication disabilities, whether they are in nursery or are adults. The overall assessment of where we are in the UK on disability rights and policies is more satisfactory than when I sought help for my child in the early 1980s, and his needs were dumped in the bin of prejudice and sheer incompetence. Such instances potentially cost us much more than welfare benefits and healthcare provision.

I want to make just one point: I am not alone, and organisations like Include Me TOO say that many of their members of ethnic minority backgrounds have suffered significant unacceptable levels of discrepancies in their services. Many believe, rightly or wrongly, that diagnosis, assessment, education and support services remain accessible only for those whose parents are already well resourced educationally, financially and in their status.