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VisionSense |
Equality Solutions |
0845 1080553 |
A hate crime is defined by the Home Office as:- "Any incident, which constitutes a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate." The Home Office goes on to define a number of prejudices that motivate hate crime offences:- "Hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by an offender's hatred of someone because of their: |
race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins religion gender or gender identity sexual orientation disability." |
Vision Sense is at the forefront of disablist hate crime research and has conducted pioneering work to map and tackle disablist hate crime in the North East following the deaths of Brent Martin, a disabled man from Sunderland, who was kicked to death for a five pound bet and Christine Lakinski, a disabled woman from Hartlepool, who was urinated upon while she was dying. Brent and Christine were both murdered in 2007; despite evidence of hate in both these cases, none of the murderers received increased sentences for the aggravated attacks. You can read our 2009 report "Disablist Hate Crime in the North East" and other hate crime research in our downloads section. |
"..disabled people are four times as likely to be violently attacked, and twice as likely to be burgled, as non-disabled people." |
NARCO/2003 |