CPS and Disability Hate Crime

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[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.”

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some disabled people need particular support in reporting hate crime and will he join me in paying tribute to Disability Equality North West, which serves both our constituencies and is based just across the river in Preston in my constituency?

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. So many voluntary organisations, charities, local government and other agencies do really good work in this area and it would be helpful to have examples of good practice that we can feed into a national database.

I welcome the Crown Prosecution Service’s consultation on hate crime, which was launched in October at about the same time as its 30th birthday, so happy birthday CPS. At the end of the day, the responsibility lies largely with the Government to set the environment in which the Crown Prosecution Service can pursue people responsible for hate crimes against disabled people. It is a team effort for all of us.

In England, some crimes are aggravated by hostility towards disability and those convicted seem to have been given unduly lenient sentences. I recognise that the CPS often comes in for a good deal of criticism in one way or another: that it is either too robust or wishy-washy in its pursuit of alleged offenders. As with most things, I suspect that some criticism is fair and some is unfair, but in the context of the clear levels of disability hate crime out there, the CPS must show that it takes disability hate crime extremely seriously; that it is doing all it can to improve prosecution and conviction rates; and that it ensures consistency across the country.

I have some questions based on the CPS’s October 2014 disability hate crime action plan. It was going to set out a hate crime assurance regime by December 2014. Did it? Is it being monitored? Is it continuing? It said it would refresh the national minimum standards for area hate crime co-ordination. Has that happened? Where is it up to? It talked about detailed analysis, including case examples, of hate crime to monitor victims’ experiences and to follow them up. Has that been completed? Is it being repeated? Where is it at?

The CPS talked about enhancements to the case management system of monitoring and recording applications for sentence uplifts—the section 146 question. Has that been done? How many, if any, uplifts have been applied for and granted? Has there been an analysis of that landscape? It said it would reissue clear guidance to prosecutors and agents to ensure sentence uplift applications are made whenever possible. Has it been reassessed and reviewed? Where is that up to?

The CPS said there would be retraining in the full range of offending to ensure that prosecutors fully understand the different forms of disability. Has that happened? Has it been reviewed and will it be reviewed again?

Has the CPS’s senior management conference had the session on disability hate crime that was promised in its action plan? If so, fab, but will it be repeated and will it be a regular event at conferences? Has the liaison with the judiciary that was promised to discuss recording and monitoring of sentence uplifts taken place, and is it regular event? A one-off event is fine, but we need regular contact with the judiciary. How is the CPS’s hate crime sub-group of its community accountability forum proceeding? It would be helpful to know where that is up to. Is it being repeated? Is it up to date? Is it meeting as often as it should? What action is it taking?

I turn to Dimensions, which is a not-for-profit charity that supports 3,500 people throughout the country who have learning disabilities, autism and complex needs. It produced a blueprint for change, “I'm with Sam”, which sets out a salutary and moving narrative, which hon. Members may wish to read. It is a fairly short and concise document and well worth reading. Among other things, it asks the CPS to improve investigation protocols in the criminal justice system when there is a learning disabilities victim. It would be helpful to have a view on whether that might happen. In addition, it seeks better training for police officers and others to help when receiving a report of a crime involving a person with a learning disability. Again, accessibility to the system is crucial, as is the ability for people to have a sympathetic ear from those who are trained or at least have some knowledge of their needs.

At a wider level, we need to engender a culture of disability awareness and give confidence to victims of hate crime that they can come forward and will be listened to. The Government need to encourage and take a lead in creating an atmosphere in which the tone of debate about policy issues, many of which they have initiated, is moderate and reasonable. The last thing this country needs is another round of finger-pointing at the latest collective bête noire. I agree with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government who said in the action plan:

“Tolerance is not something we can take for granted. It is a cornerstone of British values and one of the many reasons we are great.”

If people are not prepared to be tolerant and feel able to abuse vulnerable people, perhaps they should not expect the police and the CPS to be too tolerant towards them. In that respect, there is an expectation from most, if not all, hon. Members that the CPS will redouble its efforts, along with other law enforcement agencies, to send the message to thugs, cowards and bullies—because that is what they are—that the abuse of any vulnerable people, and in this case disabled people, will not be tolerated.

Finally, it is often not sensible to talk of personal experience, but I will make an exception today. I was brought up by a woman, a single parent, a war widow, a Christian, of Irish descent, who in her later years was disabled by partial sightedness. Each of those characteristics, in different situations, in different circumstances, in a different age, could have led to her being the victim of intolerance or hatred, and I think that sometimes she was, so she taught me that toleration was not a gift that was given to someone, but a duty that was owed to them, whoever they were—even to me when I was egregiously problematic to her. Her patience was boundless in that regard, and she was incredibly tolerant.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) on securing the debate. It is timely because, as he will know, the CPS is currently consulting on its policy for prosecuting disability hate crime. I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General will ensure that the Hansard record of this debate is forwarded to the CPS as input to the consultation, so that it can hear the views of hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber and from all parts of the United Kingdom.

Most of what the hon. Member for Bootle said I can agree with. I might take him to task on just one little bit towards the end of his remarks, but generally he set out the case very well and there was a great deal of consensus. I certainly support him in his contention about the nature of the people who carry out disability hate crime. He is absolutely right: they are thugs, cowards and bullies. I want to see the strongest possible response not just from the police and those who support people with disabilities, but from the CPS, so that people know that if they bring those cases forward and the police collect the evidence, there will be a robust prosecution response.

The hon. Gentleman cited the figures. The heartening thing is that in the most recent data, from this July, the CPS demonstrated that it had prosecuted a record number of hate crimes. We can always be either depressed or optimistic about this sort of data. It is always depressing to see the number of hate crimes going up, or those being prosecuted going up, because it can be said that the problem is getting worse. However, on the basis that certainly in the area of disability hate crime, and hate crime generally, it is accepted that more of it occurs than is tackled, the right way to read the statistics is that we are seeing more of the problem, capturing more of the problem and tackling more of the problem. In a funny sort of way, a set of statistics that shows more referrals to the police, more referrals to the CPS, more prosecutions and more convictions is actually good news, because it shows an increase not in the hate crime but in the ability of the system to tackle it. However, I understand from those who know this field best that a big gap still exists between the problem and the ability of the system to tackle it.

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention a 41% increase in hate crime prosecutions, compared with the previous year, and the highest proportion of sentence uplifts, which is very welcome. Four in five hate crimes in general result in a conviction, so that should give victims confidence that if they report a hate crime, it will be properly looked at and properly prosecuted and there is a very good chance that the cowards, bullies and thugs that the hon. Gentleman referred to will be properly dealt with.

The hon. Gentleman quoted the Director of Public Prosecutions, who has sent a very clear message that hate crime will not be ignored but will be taken seriously by Crown prosecutors. That is worth repeating.

It is also worth saying that—to be fair to the hon. Gentleman, he did recognise this—the coalition Government had, and this Conservative Government have, a plan to tackle hate crime. The hon. Gentleman was not as enthusiastic as I will be, but he did welcome that plan. It will always be capable of improvement, and I have some questions for the Solicitor General about areas that I and some organisations think could be improved, but having a plan is very good.

The action plan that was published this July deals with prevention, with how we respond to the problem, with reporting, with supporting victims and with understanding the problem by being better at collecting the data and setting out the issues.

[Seema Kennedy]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that awareness by a victim that they are actually the subject of a hate crime is very important, because in some of these cases the criminal is not a stranger? Does he also agree that campaigns—such as the one by the Lancashire police and crime commissioner, “Say No To Hate”—which raise awareness, are good for everyone because victims have more awareness that they have actually been subject to a hate crime?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I will say more later about disability hate crime, particularly against people with learning disabilities. In that respect, raising awareness of what is a hate crime, whether someone has been a victim of it and what they should do as a result is particularly important, and I join my hon. Friend in commending the efforts of her law enforcement bodies locally.

To pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Bootle about prevention, the CPS has produced a resource pack for schools and teachers on hate crime. I do not know what reach that has had into schools and colleges. Perhaps the Solicitor General could say a little about the extent to which that resource pack has got into schools. Does the CPS have any data about the take-up—the extent to which teachers are using the resource pack in their classrooms? It is clearly very helpful, because if children can be educated about treating people with disabilities properly but also, importantly, looking out for other children with disabilities, that will help the younger people whom the hon. Gentleman talked about. It will help them as they grow up and will improve the ability of society to deal with these problems.

Could the Solicitor General also say something on this progress measure? The CPS has an action plan for dealing with disability hate crime specifically. As the hon. Member for Bootle said, it did a review of training and guidance. That package was delivered across the CPS between last September and this January. I accept, therefore, that it is fairly early days—we have had only nine or 10 months of that training package having been delivered—but I will echo the question asked by the hon. Gentleman about whether we have yet seen any behavioural change in the CPS and any improvement in the way the CPS deals with this sort of crime.

Importantly, the training looked at the victim’s perspective. It looked at increasing sentence uplifts and at prosecutors being more effective at dealing with that, which was particularly helpful. It looked at the guidelines for prosecuting disability hate crime and at the support that some disabled people might need. It looked at the special measures that might have to be incorporated into the courtroom to enable them to give evidence, such as an interpreter or the use of video interviewing methods. Again, it may be too early to have seen huge change there, but it would be helpful if the Solicitor General could say something about that.

The final point that the guidance dealt with is exactly the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) just raised. It had some myth-busters, if I can put it like that, to dispel some of the erroneous assumptions that people have about prosecuting disability hate crimes. For example, it made it clear that even if the offender is a carer or family member, it is still a crime. It also made it clear that even if the victim did not have an easily identifiable impairment, which is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman made, it is still a crime and should be prosecuted.

I wanted to raise a bit of a specialist point with the Solicitor General, who will know that I have recently taken over as chair of the all-party group on learning disability. The secretariat for the group is provided by Mencap, which supports the 1.4 million people with learning disabilities across the UK. Again, Mencap has welcomed what the Government have done on dealing with disability hate crime, but it has a number of questions. It supports the Dimensions campaign, “I’m with Sam”, which the hon. Member for Bootle mentioned, but I want to ask the Solicitor General about a number of issues in particular that it has raised.

How easy is it for people, particularly with a learning disability, to use the system? In my understanding, accessible information and support is not always available to guide them through it. I draw the Solicitor General’s attention to a resource that has been produced in Gloucestershire by students from the National Star College, working with Gloucestershire constabulary, to raise awareness of disability hate crime. That video sets out what disability hate crime is, how people can recognise it and how they can report it and have it dealt with. Much as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble said, that sort of local resource is being taken seriously by my county council, which provides excellent support for people with learning disabilities, and by the police and crime commissioner and Gloucestershire constabulary. All those bodies sending out that powerful message is very helpful. A little bit from the Solicitor General on accessible information would be welcome.

As the hon. Member for Bootle said, Mencap is also interested in looking at using the data better so we can see whether any types of disability hate crime are a particular problem—that might be learning disabilities or people with autism, for example—or whether it is a problem more generally.

The Dimensions campaign asked for a legal change so that online hate crime against people with disabilities is specifically made a crime. I am interested in the Solicitor General’s view on that because, in my understanding, if someone behaves in a certain way online, it is still a crime. It may be more or less difficult to get evidence, but if someone does something that is a crime, the fact that that behaviour happens in the online space does not mean it is not a crime, so I do not know whether it is necessary to change the law specifically to criminalise behaviour online, which is one of the asks in the campaign. It might be helpful if the Solicitor General is very clear in his response that some of the abuse and intolerance that we see online, which the hon. Member for Bootle referred to, is a crime and can be prosecuted. An advantage of online crime in one sense is that it provides a helpful audit trail for police and prosecutors, but I understand that dealing with that is very resource-intensive. It might be helpful if the Solicitor General set out a bit about what is going on there.

I shall make a couple of other points before I finish. The Law Commission has carried out a review into sentencing in this area and has looked at whether the “stirring up offences”, if I may call them that—those that apply currently to race, for example—should be extended to disability. It has concluded that they should not be, but it has made two specific recommendations about sentencing. It said that there should be new guidance from the Sentencing Council about the sentence uplift provisions that are available in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It has also said that when an offender is convicted of a disability hate crime and the sentence uplift is used, the offender’s record on the police national computer should be updated, so that there is a record of that. My understanding is that the Government have not yet responded to those recommendations. I know the Home Office has said that it is keeping them under review and I wonder whether the Solicitor General can provide the House with an update on that before he finishes.

I have a couple of final questions for the Solicitor General. When he was responding in the House of Commons to oral questions, he said that he attended a round table at the national College of Policing in September last year specifically on hate crime and disability hate crime, in particular. It was about sharing best practice across police forces and, of course, the national College of Policing does an excellent job in trying to spread best practice and raise policing standards generally. Will he update the House on any progress that has flowed from that round table, and does he have any further plans in that regard?

Finally, let me turn to the one area of disagreement I had with the hon. Member for Bootle. We agree on the way in which people with disabilities are sometimes reported by the media, but as we have an independent media, politicians are not responsible for what they do. We can suggest to them that they are not being very responsible, but it is not our job to tell them what to print. I do not agree with him, however, about the impact of the Government’s policies on supporting disabled people. I should declare an interest, Mr Bone: before the general election, between July 2014 and March 2015, I was the Minister for Disabled People. The Department’s entire focus—whether it was through our Disability Confident campaign or trying to deliver more help and support for disabled people—was on trying to get disabled people into work where they can. I had a recent debate in Westminster Hall about looking at more opportunities, post-Brexit, for disabled people to get into work. A huge number of people with learning disabilities, for example, could work if they are given the opportunity. They do not get that opportunity. We have seen 350,000 more people with disabilities being given the opportunity to work, so as far as the Government’s messages are concerned—that is what politicians are responsible for; I cannot be responsible for what the media print—they are very clear: they are about providing more opportunity and more help and support.

In the past couple of weeks, a Green Paper was published by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about the help and support that should be available for getting more disabled people into work where they can work and about increasing the support for disabled people who are not able to work. The messages from the Government have actually been very supportive and I do not think any increase in disability hate crime could fairly be attributed to the policies of the Department for Work and Pensions. The points made by the hon. Member for Bootle may be more advisedly directed to the media, and I hope that they also listen to the debate and behave accordingly.

This has been a very valuable debate and it is an important subject to get on to the agenda. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it and I look forward to the Solicitor General’s response.