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From: The Socialist issue 758, 27 March 2013: Bedroom tax: Can't pay - Will stay!

Search site for keywords: Disability - Police - Crime - Disabled

The Socialist: Reader's comment

Disability hate crimes - accomplices and victims

Derek McMillan

Over 1,700 disability hate crimes were recorded by police in England and Wales in 2011-12. The new Joint Inspectorate report said that disability hate crime was in fact under-reported and blamed police officers' reluctance to ask callers whether they were disabled or not.

The largest disability hate crime has been by the Department for Work and Pensions bosses who contracted the Atos company to reduce the number of claimants for Disability Living Allowance.

There are examples of Atos insisting that a man in a coma, or another claimant who was blind and deaf and unable to walk, were "fit for work" and clearly just scroungers.

And this crime's accomplices are the gutter press which wage an unceasing campaign against 'scroungers' and fuel the hatred which allows disability hate crime to take place.

Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her disabled daughter Francecca Hardwick in 2007 after repeated complaints to police about harassment by youths.

However the police were quick enough to act when Beth Tichbourne took part in a peaceful protest and yelled at Cameron "you have blood on your hands".

On 30 November 2012 David Cameron was booed coming on stage to turn on the Christmas lights in Witney, Oxfordshire.

On YouTube you can watch a video of him trying to drown out any criticism by awkwardly getting the crowd to cheer for everyone from themselves to the queen.

Beth Tichbourne told the Black Triangle Campaign: "While this was going on I was being beaten up by the police on the other side of the stage.

I have never been so scared: my face was being pushed into the ground, I could feel blood coming from my nose, there was someone putting their whole weight on my back while someone else was stamping on my knees, along with various people grabbing and twisting my limbs. And then the officer on my back moved a knee up onto the back of my neck."

Beth was fined £747. Small change for a millionaire like Cameron but more than a month's income for her.

The police can act hard enough when the issue is important enough to them but when it comes to dealing with disability hate crime, it seems they're too embarrassed.

A website 'calumslist.org' lists 30 deaths attributable to 'Welfare Reform'. Cameron actually does have blood on his hands. Quite a lot of it!

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.