My experience of disability hate crime.

I’m really happy to see the new campaign by Changing Faces on disability hate crime. Hate crime happens to disabled people all the time. People think they can get away with it because it’s not taken seriously and even if you know how to report it, it gets tiring when nothing really changes.

I hope this campaign raises some much-needed awareness and gives people the confidence and the resources they need to report a hate crime.

My own experiences of hate crime

Recently, I was at work eating lunch in the cafeteria and I noticed three men looking at me. I’m used to stares so I fobbed it off, but then I noticed one of the men had his phone out and he was clearly taking photos of me and smirking at his friends. I started to feel a bit sick.

They got up to leave and as they were walking by I shouted, “Excuse me”. The guy that was taking pictures ran off but his friends came over and I asked them “Was your friend taking pictures of me?” – they said no but I could tell that he had been.

I was really upset but I acted as if I wasn’t bothered. When I got back to work, I reported it because I would hate for it to happen to anyone else. My employer handled it really well and helped me report it as a hate crime.

They went through CCTV and tried to catch the people but they couldn’t find them. I don’t mind that they weren’t caught, the reaction of my employers was enough for me. I was grateful that they took it so seriously.

Changing Faces reports that on average there are 67,000 disability related hate crimes every year.

It’s likely to be much higher – their survey found that only 30% of respondents who had experienced hate crime reported it to the police, and many people don’t even realise it’s a hate crime.

Hate crime really affects your life

Incidents like this might not seem like a big thing to some people but it had such an effect on me. I’m trying to get over it but I’m still nervous around people and I’m looking around me more vigilantly. It’s annoying, I’m not usually like that. It’s something I’m warier of now, especially with the rise of social media.

Someone taking photos of you is embarrassing and it’s intimidating. Those photos could have gone anywhere online. It just baffles me that people could do that to someone just because of your appearance.

There’s the classic attitude that ‘little people are funny’ and I don’t understand it. There’s not enough diverse representation in the media. If people only see little people doing comedy, it creates the attitude that it’s okay to laugh at disabled people.

People also shout at me all the time, on the street. They say, “Oi midget”, things like that, especially on nights out when people are drunk.

I’ve also had taxi drivers physically try to yank my wheelchair out of their taxi when I’ve already said to them “Please don’t touch me, please don’t touch my chair”. I’ve got brittle bones so I have to be careful. It had me in tears. He wouldn’t do that to someone not in a wheelchair. I can’t believe that people aren’t aware that things like that are a hate crime.

I don’t want pity, I want you to do something about it

Even if people do know they’ve experienced a hate crime, they haven’t got enough support to report things. And when I reported my incident, I got sent loads of leaflets about hate crime – but it’s a bit late after it’s happened. It’s quite dangerous that it’s still happening and there’s no real acknowledgement in society that it’s wrong or a plan to tackle it.

Changing Faces’ research found that only 18% of people believed that the police would deal with a hate crime effectively if they reported it.

If I tell people about it and I’m upset, they’ll be like “Oh bless”, but I don’t want to be pitied, I want you to do something about it. People aren’t aware of how to deal with these complaints. The people we’re reporting to need educating on what it’s like and how to deal with it.

I’m not asking for special treatment, I just want to be treated like everyone else.

If you’ve experienced hate crime, you can find out about reporting hate crime on Changing Faces’ website.