Disability Hate Crime

In an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Government gave judges additional powers to increase sentences for crimes where the perpetrator’s motive is influenced by the victims sexual orientation or “disability”.

This meant that the definition of a hate crime was widened to include crimes committed against a person or property that is motivated by hatred of someone’s:

• race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origin
• religion
• gender or gender identity
• sexual orientation
• disability

Hate crime can take many forms, including:

• physical attacks  (such as physical assault, damage to property, offensive graffiti, neighbour disputes and arson)
• threat of attack  (including offensive letters, abusive or obscene telephone calls, groups hanging around to intimidate, and unfounded, malicious complaints)
• verbal abuse or insults (offensive leaflets and posters, abusive gestures, dumping of rubbish outside homes or through letterboxes, and bullying at school or in the workplace)

Although, so far,  their has been little statistical information on the extent to which disabled people are subject to hate crime incidents, a survey carried out in Scotland in 2003 revealed that one in five disabled Scots had experienced harassment due to their “disability”.

The Home Office has stated that it plans to launch a range of initiatives and measures over the next two years, including:

• increasing the proportion of victims or witnesses of hate crime who report its occurrence
• improving the proportion of hate crimes that are brought to justice
• improving the local response to hate crime, particularly where there are high levels of hate crime or a high proportion  per capita (per number of the population)
• improving the evidence on the extent and nature of hate crimes

Below are links for each of the 10 districts of Greater Manchester where you can find out more about reporting incidents. At the end of this section there are some additional links if you wish to find out more about disabled people and hate crime.

Bolton (Greater Manchester Police)

Bury (Bury MBC)

Manchester (Manchester City Council)

Oldham (Greater Manchester Police)

Rochdale (Greater Manchester Police)

Salford (Greater Manchester Police)

Stockport (Greater Manchester Police)

Tameside (Tameside MBC)

Trafford (Greater Manchester Police)

Wigan (Greater Manchester Police)

Further Reading:

Hate Crime (from the "Home Office")

Disability Hate Crime (from "Disability Rights Commission")

Hate crime (from "Greater Manchester Police")