I am writing in a very personal response to the new figures by saying that it is both a relief and a sadness to see the substantial increase in recorded disability hate crime in the latest government report.  https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2015-to-2016

It is important to note that there has been an increase of 107% for disability hate crimes recorded between the first figures in 2011/2 - 1,748  2012/3 - 1,911 

2013/4 - 2,020  2014/15 - 2,515  and 2015/16 3,629.  

It is significant that we see an increasing confidence that disabled people both can and are reporting hate crime, which may suggest improved identification of what is and is not a hate crime in a historically low reported category. Of course we must accept that it is possible that some of the increase may be due to an escalation in actual criminal hate behaviour which is not unexpected in an increasingly hostile society, but I can say that there is increased confidence in reporting through joint work, and for example our 3rd party centre in Preston is recording an average of 8 cases per month, over an 18 month period. The major point is that many of these are of the 'lower level' order which although noted and logged in our procedure, are often dealt within a community status, and in some respects are working in a crime prevention category.

In terms of Disability Hate Crime, we have seen no significant spike of reports in the EU vote aftermath. This frankly we would not have expected as the 'disability' agenda is not so politically volatile in that respect. The ongoing issue of benefit cheat is no worse or better than pre the vote.

Having made these points, we are sadly identifying some serious gaps in the system, so that for example, we have a lady who had her case properly logged by the police force in her area, but unfortunately she was offered no signposting for additional support and as a result has had acts which have made her scared of her neighbours therefore making it worse. In the end we at the network have found an advocacy group to assist her. So we still need to ensure that each of us don't 'just do our bit' and actually make things worse.

Finally of course, we do need far better use of the existing available elements of law to ensure full justice for disabled people, as the lack of consistency in sentencing and the abysmal use of not of s146 of the Criminal Justice act is almost laughable if it wasn't so serious.

We will continue our fight.