Fiona Pilkington: her tormentors should have got more than an Asbo
The case of Fiona Pilkington, the 38-year old woman who killed herself and her 18-year-old disabled daughter, Frankie, after years of abuse from local youths in Leicestershire, has shocked the nation—and so naturally, once the story broke, politicians were swift to respond. The home secretary, Alan Johnson, in a speech at the Labour party conference, said that he would use the case to “force” the police to do more to tackle anti-social behaviour. Gordon Brown echoed this in his speech later the same day, assuring “the British people that between now and Christmas, neighbourhood policing will focus in a more direct and intensive way on anti-social behaviour.” Johnson also said that the case showed that tackling anti-social behaviour should be prioritised by police—as it clearly was not in this case: many of Fiona’s pleas to the police for help were not treated with the level of seriousness they deserved.
Clearly anti-social behaviour and the “respect agenda” are popular topics for politicians of all parties, and we should expect to hear more from all of them on the case.
But that’s not enough. Fiona Pilkington and her daughter were targeted, day after day, because Frankie happened to have a learning impairment. The family were taunted and called names, like “disabled bitch,” as well as being pelted with eggs and stones. Neighbours tried to help, but Fiona became so depressed she sat in the dark, fearful of the youths outside. Eventually she drove to a layby, with Frankie next to her, and set her car on fire.
The Pilkington case was one of the many that I examined when I was researching disability hate crime two years ago. I collected a dossier of 50 crimes against disabled people, few of which were treated as hate crimes. They ranged from the nasty—pushing wheelchair users out of their chairs—to torture and murder.
One of the most horrifying was the case of Christine Lakinski, a disabled woman, like Frankie, who was harassed by neighbours. In 2007, after collapsing in the street on her way home one day, a crowd gathered around her. As she lay dying, instead of helping her, one man covered her in shaving foam and urinated on her.
I subsequently highlighted this case, and a disturbingly high number of others, in a report called Getting Away with Murder, which was published last year. None of the cases in the report, however, were treated as disability hate crimes by the police. Yet if these crimes, and those committed against the Pilkington family had been committed against people from ethnic minority groups, I am sure they would have, quite rightly, been investigated and prosecuted as the hate crimes they undoubtedly were.
So while politicians should rightly be shocked by the Pilkington case, they should see beyond the easy label of “anti-social behaviour” and name and treat these crimes for what they really are: hate crimes against disabled people.
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Katherine.
This case which we all knew of as existing, has actually turned out to be far worse than we ever imagined.
It is not just about being critical of Leicestershire police, it is about a total failure of the local council, the community safety teams, any neighbourhood watch and yes of course individual police. We all share the blame!
This is the ‘Stephen Lawrence’ moment for disabled people. Lets make sure we learn!
Stephen Brookes.
Disability Hate Crime Network
As an academic working on disability hate crime, I must agree with Katherine. There is a case in Kent which is on the news today, where a disabled gay couple have been forced to flee their home. Kent Police said:
“Kent Police always takes reports of anti-social behaviour seriously and will react, provide resources and tackle the problems faced by people,”
Why is it not correctly labelled as hate crime? Because the victims were disabled? A racist incident would surely have not been called anti-social behaviour. It is important because it impacts on the police response.
It is predictable that politicians will use the Pilkingtons’ tragedy to make broader points about anti-social behaviour. Yes, it is ‘anti-social’ to torment someone until she kills herself and her daughter, just as it is ‘anti-social’ to murder someone. But politicians must be acknowledge the fact that the Pilkingtons were targeted because of mental health problems, so that this was a disability hate crime. A Mind study found that mentally ill people are eleven times more likely to suffer abuse and harassment than non-disabled people. Politicians can and should put pressure on the police and CPS to charge more people with disability hate crimes. They should also do all they can to help end the stigma still associated with mental illness.
While this does have the potential to be ‘our’ Lawrence moment, I’m truly sceptical that it will. Not one commentator, either politician or broadcaster/journalist in the mainstream media has linked this to hate crime and it will be subsumed in the ‘broken Britian’ war of words that will accelerate as the next election draws nigh.
Until the life of a disabled person is seen as valid and valuable as that of a non-disabled person by the wider society, this will not change. The use of disabled people as the targts of jokes and ridicule in the media in ways that would never be premitted regarding other minorities and the lack of concern of the regulators only serves to perpetuate this.
I was involved in producing the ‘Getting Away with Murder report’ representing UKDPC. I have tried to raise awareness of Disability Hate crime for over fifteen years.
I have been attacked several times as a wheelchair user, told I should have been killed at birth and as I was not should be killed now, threatened, abused, harrassed. I have worked hard to get the police in London and natioanally more aware and active on this issue.
We see little initiatives here and there by police but this is no way good enough. So many disabled people are victims of hate crime, domestic violence and abuse yet most our stories do not get in the headlines and very little, if any, response from this government.
How many more deaths does there have to be? one? ten? fifty?
When will we be believed?
When will we get justice?
When will we get eqaulity?
Untill we get prompt responses to this issue we will always be a target as most perpetuators get away with it, if sentanced they get less time for murdering a disabled person then they do for a non disabled person.
This country and its justice system and all the police services need to ask themselves some very hard questions about the underlying discriminatory beliefs and attitudes towards disabled people that leads to them not giving us the justice we deserve and rightly expect.
We are not second class human beings whose life experiences can be disregarded and ignored as though we are of little importance and an irratant to society at large.
Passive acceptance of second class service provision around justice for disabled people is intolerable and unacceptable.
I for one, and UKDPC, will not stand by without challenging everyone in this country about the way we are treated, not believed, and murdered just because we are disabled people.
This is a human rights issue and one that a country like the UK should have been adresssing many years ago.
Now I ask, claim the right to equal justice and legislation that recognises the experiences of Hate Crime we experience.
It is not ’social misbehaviour’it is a crime!
It’s crime, pure and simple, not “hate crime”, which is a bogus leftist political project to privilege certain groups. The “hate crime” boondoggle is harmful to the “victims”, as well as to the non-disabled, non-black, non-gay middle class people who are also the victims of crime (it does employ a whole load of Islington luvvies at universities and community organising groups though). This wave of crime in England is the direct result of PC pandering which means that police spend more time filling in forms about how homophobic they are and arresting students for calling a horse “gay” than actually going out on the beat. If they did go out on the beat and had stopped these evil youths from standing outside this poor lady’s house, the “human rights” bandwagon would be suing them before they got back to the station.
@ Toby
Hate crime exisits because the crime is specifically focused on one aspect of the victim. Alledging that some ‘PC gone mad’ element is why this crime is higher now than ever before is just nonsense. I got just as much abuse and as many threats because of my disability under the last Tory Govt as I do now under Labour.
I’d bet good money that most non-disabled, non-black, non-gay middle class people don’t get anywhere near the amount of directed abuse on a daily basis as disabled people do.
If, as you say, this is a project to privilege certain groups, you’ve got nothing to lose by becoming diasbled and seeing just how privileged we are.
@ Dave
Toby’s point is not denying that disabled people suffer more abuse than able bodied people (though in my closeted naivety i have to admit to being shocked at the apparent scale of it) but that giving it a label of “hate” crime changes nothing. It’s a crime. Equally I’ve never understood why a racially motivated crime is any worse than the same crime with no racist motive: why is beating somebody up because they are black or in a wheelchair worse than beating up someone who is neither?
@OJ
The same could be said about killing a child compared with an adult but society deems this a more ’serious’ crime. Murder is murder regardless of the victim?
Surely the aim of any just society is to reduce the persecution of the most disproportionately persecuted individuals? Using the term ‘hate crime’ is one tool in addressing this. Whilst the impact of an individual crime on a specific individual is roughly equal regardless of the circumstances of that individual (ignoring issues like insurance, support networks and the resources to overcome the crime), some groups of people experience more crime than others purely because of some unaltererable thing about them. Because of where I live and my house, my chances of being burgled are the same as my neighbours regardless of their ability or disability, however if we were out on a Saturday, my chances of being abused or threatened are much higher than theirs. So far, the desingator of hate crime seems to be the best tool for recording and addressing this. I’ve yet to hear any other suggestions from the “crime is just crime” lobby that address this point.
What a good idea! But then that means going back to Common Sense policing principles when police were police and not Nulabour Social Workers.
Rowing back from the mess of the ill conceived social engineering of the last 20 years will be heavy going. In what should become a memorable phrase, said we should stop treating adults like children and children like adults – but how to begin unpicking the nonsense and wrong headed ideology that now ensnares and neuters us in everything we do is hard to see.