Landmark Disability Report

Today the Equality and Human Rights Commission published a report: Promoting safety and security of disabled people. (I'd like to thank Rich Watts for alerting me to this through his blog.) When I worked for the Disability Rights Commission we wanted very much to commission research into disabled people's experiences of harassment, crime and safety, but we ran out of time. I have blogged before about the work I carried out when working for the Mayor of London with People First and the Met Police.

This new report seems to be far reaching in its scope and its findings are sadly not surprising to me but will be to others I hope.

Disabled people are 4 x more likely to be victims of crime and around 47% of disabled people have experienced violence towards themselves or another disabled person.

The Another Planet report that I helped David Morris produce at the GLA identified that in London in 2003 half of disabled people had experienced harassment in their local community. As soon as you begin to break down these figures by people with learning difficulties or those with mental health conditions the figures become much higher.

I really welcome this report and really hope that the police, CPS, public bodies, landlords and the government take action.

I have certainly experienced random acts of harassment, and even assault which I am sure were connected to my disability. One city women who pushed me down the stairs at Tower Hill tube station made her opinion very clear by yelling "Get moving - are you blind or something!?" I did reply "Yes, actually," and was helped by a couple of passers by but the woman just stormed on.