Home Office ‘uses false claims’ about disabled campaigner to dodge disability hate crime meeting

The government has been accused of “hiding behind false claims” and failing disabled people who are being targeted by disability hate, while dodging a meeting with a leading disabled people’s organisation.

The Home Office’s commitment to tackling disability hate crime has been questioned in National Hate Crime Awareness Week, after it said it was too busy to meet disabled campaigners over their calls for action.

Inclusion London, which leads the Justice for Disabled Victims campaign, had told the Home Office that far more needed to be done to address disability hate crime, and repeatedly requested a meeting to discuss strengthening the law.

It believes that not enough has been done in the government’s crime and policing bill to strengthen the law, and has also contacted MPs and peers to pass on its concerns.

Although one extension of the law on disability hate crime is set to be added to the bill, disabled people’s organisations say this is not enough.

A civil servant from the Home Office’s Neighbourhood Crime Unit told Inclusion London last month that the government was determined to tackle disability hate crime, and that it was considering further action.

They said the government was “considering how we can strengthen our engagement” with the disability sector, but they added: “Due to diary pressures, we are unable to offer a meeting.”

They also claimed that Dame Diana Johnson, the then minister for policing and crime prevention, met with members of the National Hate Crime Independent Advisory Group, including a disabled campaigner, in June.

But Inclusion London has since discovered that this disabled campaigner did not attend the meeting.

It said the Home Office had been caught “making false claims about engagement with disabled people”.

Louise Holden, Inclusion London’s senior policy officer for disabled people and crime, said: “With hate crime on the rise and increasing hostility in our society, it is vital for us to have better protections if we are targeted.

“The government’s lack of interest or willingness to understand the issues is yet more proof that disabled people just don’t matter to them.”

The government has promised to extend the law so that standalone “aggravated offences” would also apply to disability hate crime and hate crime motivated by sexual orientation or transgender identity.

This would mean an offender could be charged with an offence – such as assault, harassment or criminal damage – that was aggravated by hostility towards a disabled person, and they would then face a tougher sentence if convicted.

At present, aggravated offences only apply to racial and religious hostility, and a disability hate crime can only be addressed by a court during sentencing, where the sentence can be increased if prosecutors can prove the offence was motivated by disability-related hostility.

The extension is due to be made through an amendment to the crime and policing bill when it reaches the committee stage in the House of Lords in the next few weeks.

The aggravated offences change was recommended by the Law Commission nearly four years ago, but it also made two other key recommendations to strengthen disability hate crime laws.

It called for existing offences of stirring up hatred, which only apply to race and religion, to be extended to disabled and LGBT+ victims, and it said an offender should be found guilty of a disability hate crime offence if they had been “motivated” by “hostility or prejudice” towards disabled people, rather than – at present – only by hostility.

The Home Office claims it is “carefully considering” these two further extensions.

This week, the Home Office had refused to comment by noon today (Thursday) on the claims about the ministerial meeting in June, and that it had not told the truth about the presence of a disabled campaigner at the meeting.

But it said in a statement, which repeated the response it issued to a completely different story about disability hate crime (see separate story): “We are absolutely committed to tackling all forms of hate crime and have already committed to protect disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence.

“Whilst the police are operationally independent, we expect the police to fully investigate these appalling offences and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure perpetrators of these abhorrent offences are brought to justice.”

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