New guidelines have been issued to the police to help increase the number of prosecutions for hate crimes against people with disabilities.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has pledged more support to disabled victims of hate crime after admitting that it needs to 'raise its game' over the issue in England and Wales. Joanna Perry of the CPS's equality and diversity unit added 'we know that disabled people probably think enough is not being done in this area'. In addition to the new guidelines, there has been more training for raised awareness.
Chief Constable Steve Otter, from the Association of Chief Police Officers stated: 'There's no doubt we can do more. It's very challenging- we have to make sure our officers are trained properly so they can identify disability and mental health issues.
'We have to make sure that we can get the evidence into court in an admissible way and we have to make sure that we are working really hard to prevent these things in the first place.'
These comments follow the case of Fiona Pilkington who killed herself and her 18-year old daughter after suffering more than 10 years of abuse from a gang of teenagers living in their street in Barwell, Leicestershire.