Get Ready For MacPherson, Part II…

In the wake of the awful death of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter, I can feel a huge case of déjà vu coming on:

There are few concrete statistics on the level of hate crime against the 1.2m people in Britain with a learning disability. In a survey by the charity Mencap, nine out of 10 said they had been bullied in the past year. Two-thirds of those questioned said they were bullied on a regular basis, and a third told of being bullied daily or weekly.

And this case is therefore proving a godsend for special interest groups to push their agenda, and create a new ‘protected class’ of victim, when what is needed is not new legislation, not ‘high profile campaigns’, but a simple return to law and order.

For everyone…

Official attempts to gather data about such crimes against disabled people generally only started last year. Experts and campaigners regard this as the most stark evidence of the failure by the authorities, and in particular the police, to take seriously the routine suffering of those with learning disabilities.

The routine suffering of those without learning disabilities doesn’t seem to be attracting any attention, does it?

It tends to take a death to gain any serious attention, says David Congdon, the head of campaigns and policy at Mencap. What he calls "low-level harassment and bullying" goes largely unnoticed unless it drives someone to such depths of despair as it did Fiona Pilkington.

So why not attack the policies and procedures that have driven this, Dave?

Why not argue that the policy of creating ‘special interest groups’ – such as ‘underprivileged children’, who may be the ones causing the problems – has helped to create this very situation, with the police reluctant to act for fear of ‘criminalising’ them?

But there’s no job for you in that, I suppose…

"Often people with learning disabilities aren't believed, which is a major, major problem," he said. "And they can be frightened to report incidents because they fear it will make it worse."

Sometimes, Dave, that is the actual advice from the police themselves, no doubt as a result of the 'softly softly' politically-correct crap that their higher-ups have pushed further and further down the food chain.

And note that this woman doesn’t seem to be in your protected class, so what should the police do for her anyway, in your view?

Ruth Scott, of the charity Scope, said: "Disabled people still find they report something to the police and nothing gets done, or the paper gets lost.

"But incidents can start at a low level and get much worse if they are not checked."

And that’s different from incidents featuring non-disabled people, is it?

I think not…

A similar lack of awareness pervades public opinion, according to Scope. It likens the situation to the general ignorance of race hate crime before Stephen Lawrence's death.

What general ignorance?

He (David Congdon) would like to say the Pilkington case will be a turning point – just as Lawrence and the subsequent Macpherson report were a watershed in the treatment of race hate crime – but fears there is still some way to go.

Well, good!

Because the MacPherson case proved a monumental failure for all but the vocal race-grievance industry, and imposed huge overheads on policing with no noticable reduction in 'hate crime' to thank for it.

It should be the last thing that people point to and say ‘We need some of that!’ in this case.

But it’s going to be…

"I hope it's a step on the way to a turning point. There's a very painful message for the police here, but the other agencies have got to ask themselves a lot of questions as well.

"Fiona and Francecca did not need to die."

No-one needs to die from a preventable breakdown in law and order, Dave. Not black people, brown people, learning disabled people or people of no known special interest group.

But the target for that should be the ‘law and order’ part, not the introduction of yet more special interest groups into the creaking, not-fit-for-purpose justice system…