From the BBC, the Sunderland [UK] Echo, and elsewhere:
It was every mother’s worst nightmare. A gentle 23-year-old man with learning disabilities was punched, kicked and stamped to death for sport by three young men who set upon him while they were waiting at a bus stop. He thought they were his friends.

The young men who killed Brent Martin had a five-pound bet over who could knock him out with a single punch. Witnesses at the trial, in the working class northeast England city of Sunderland, testified that the vulnerable young man trusted his aggressors, told them he loved them, and did not attempt to defend himself.

The case of Brent Martin, in which one teenager has been convicted of murder and two others have pleaded guilty, has renewed calls in the UK for laws to protect people with disabilities from hate crime. Martin’s death puts a human face on an issue that is appearing more frequently in British press reports of late, as acts of violence against people with disabilities are surfacing with alarming regularity.

Some examples:

– Disability Now, a UK magazine covering disability issues, has assembled a list of 51 brutal attacks and murders against people with disabilities over the past two years.

– The British charity Mind reported that nearly three quarters of people with mental health problems said they were being subjected to physical or sexual abuse or theft, but many vulnerable adults don’t report crimes because they feel stigmatized by the legal system.

– The British Council of Disabled People reported that people with disabilities are four times more likely to be a victim of crime than others.

– The UK mental health charity Mencap reports that eight of ten children with learning disabilities had faced bullying at school, and six of ten had faced physical attacks.

Katharine Quarmby, news editor at Disability Now, is quoted by the BBC:

“I think it tells us that disabled people are targeted by a certain number of people in the population and they are seen as easy targets because of their disabilities.

“We need to increase the reporting of (these) crimes and we need the criminal justice system to look at disability hate crime far more seriously, to investigate it and prosecute it with far more vigor.”

In a speech earlier this year, Queen Elizabeth outlined plans for outlawing incitement of hatred against people with disabilities.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 10:32 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, criminal justice, intellectual disabilities, law, learning disabilities, violence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post