Man with learning disabilities abused by family
9 May
A man with learning disabilities called Ghalib Hussain was abused by his family for over three years. Ghalib came to this country for an arranged marriage and could speak very little English. The marriage didn’t work and the family of his wife started to abuse him.
The family were cruel and violent to Ghalib and treated him like a slave. They thought he was a financial burden on them because he couldn’t work.
They threatened to bury him alive and cut his tongue out and beat him all the time! He escaped and was found wandering in the street. The police came and someone in the street helped to translate. When the police asked if they could take him home he go very frightened and clung to a lamp post. Then Ghalib told them about being beaten and not being allowed to go back to Pakistan.
A relative took Ghalib home where he was very badly beaten for speaking out. Four days later a police officer and a social worker went to the house and asked to speak to Ghalib alone. The family lied and said he wasn’t there but the police found Ghalib huddled on the sofa.
Ghalib told them about how he was badly treated.
The professionals did a good job by going to help him and making sure they talked to him alone.
Ghalib was taken to hospital because his hip was broken by the abuse.
It’s great that Ghalib has got out of this terrible situation and is getting help. The members of his family who abused Ghalib are being charged with threatening to kill, grievous bodily harm and fear of violence by harassment and false imprisonment.
They are all denying what they did because they think it was ok to treat Ghalib like that because he has a learning disability.
Tags: arranged marriage, attitudes, bullying, Ghalib Hussain, learning disabilities, Pakistan, police, politics, society, violence
Justice for Josh
17 Apr
Acton Baths, where Police handcuffed and assaulted teenager
I read a story in the paper about a young man called Josh who has learning disabilities. He was at the swimming baths with his friends and support workers. He was in his clothes at the side of the pool and he was enjoying looking at the water. He was in his own dream world, another word for this is a ‘trance’. The pool staff rang the police because they wanted him to stop doing it.
This is when things started to go really wrong for Josh. The police and pool staff didn’t listen to the support staff, they tried to get Josh to stop but this scared him and he jumped into the pool. After he got out of the pool the police put handcuffs on him and tied up his feet, and then they put him in the police van.
Police put Josh in handcuffs
The Police left Josh alone in their van - cold and dripping wet
He was all wet and very frightened and they left him all on his own.
Josh and his family were very upset and angry about what happened so they took the police to court. The judge agreed that the police were guilty and had discriminated against Josh. Another way to say this is that they were not fair to him. The judge said that the police had to pay some money to them. Josh and his family are pleased the court said the police are guilty but they really want the police to say sorry.
Since this happened every time Josh hears a police siren he gets very upset and frightened. He doesn’t like going swimming anymore. His epilepsy is worse because he is so upset about it.
Police sirens scare Josh since the incident at the baths
I think the police need to learn more about working with people who have a learning disability, they need some training!
The police don’t want to say sorry because they want to take it back to court. We disagree, we think the police should say sorry and admit they made a mistake.
What if Josh is a victim of a hate crime? The police are saying they want disabled people to speak up about being bullied but this will be very hard for Josh after his terrible experience.
Come on Metropolitan Police – you can do a better job than this!
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Tags: Acton Baths, autism, equal rights, hate crime, Josh, learning disabilities, Metropolitan Police, police complaints, swimming pool
Court mistakes lead to ridiculous sentences for torture gang
13 Mar
Manchester Crown Court - mistakes were made
It’s terrible what happened to Sean Ruddeforth, a vulnerable man with learning disabilities. He was tied to a lamppost for four hours and had paint, food and nail varnish put on him by three drunk people.
The court made a mistake and didn’t tell the judge to treat it as a disability hate crime and the bullies only got suspended sentences.
If they had been prosecuted under the Criminal Justice Act 146 with a disability hate crime then they would have been given heavier sentences for what they did to Mr Ruddeforth.
From Left: Maggie Bowden, Anthony Connolly and Rebecca Willis. All three walked free from court after torturing Sean Rudderforth for hours
The Crown Prosecution Service is going to look into what went wrong. There are also claims that Greater Manchester Police did not deal correctly with two calls from witnesses.
Steven Brookes who is co-ordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network said,
“I am deeply dismayed that the whole criminal justice system failed this person”.
Tags: bullying, court case, criminal justice act Section 146, crown prosecution service, hate crime, justice, learning disabilities, torture, violence
Men jailed for Hate Crime leaflets
12 Mar
Left to right: Ihjaz Ali, Mehboob Hussain, Umar Javed, Razwan Javed, and Kabir Ahmed
I saw on the news the other day a story about bullying gay people. Some men in Derby put leaflets through the doors of the houses around their Mosque. The leaflets said that being gay is wrong and that gay people should be killed.
This is very upsetting and frightening for the people who saw the leaflets.
I heard about this too and it made me upset and cross. The police got involved, they found out who made the leaflets and they arrested them.
This is very important because this is the first time anyone has been charged by the police for bullying gay people in this way. In 2010 there was a new law which says it is wrong to:
“get people to join in with bullying people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual”
I am a Muslim and I don’t agree with bullying gay people. In the Muslim faith we believe that all bullying is wrong and should be stopped. Our faith also tells us that we should follow the laws in Britain. Most Muslim people don’t agree with those men who made these leaflets.
I am proud to be gay and I know that Muslims can be gay too. I think it is awful for the Muslim gay people who saw the leaflets, they must have been really scared. It can be hard to be a gay Muslim, here are some websites with some information about groups who support gay Muslims:
www.safraproject.org
www.imaan.org.uk
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/background/gay.htm
Saffron – Bradford based support for black and minority ethnic women questioning their sexual orientation: Telephone 07501 221 561 or email saffron@equitypartnership.org.uk
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Tags: al bab, bullies, bullying, gay lesbian bisexual, hate crime, imaan, leaflets, muslim faith, racial hatred, saffron
Disabled people stop the traffic in protest!
13 Feb
- Disabled people stop the traffic in London’s Oxford Circus, 28th January 2012
Last Saturday I went to London with Annabel to join in an action about the cuts.
It was a demonstration against the cuts to disability benefits. The cuts discriminate against disabled people. We chained ourselves in a line across the road to stop the traffic.
We wanted to make people in Britain realise that the cuts are wrong and disabled people are suffering.
I saw it on the news. What the government is doing makes me mad. But it was really good to see disabled people being really strong, clever and having disability pride.
I watched a film about it on the internet. It was great to see disabled people speaking up for our rights. You can watch it on the Guardian website: click here.
Tags: action, benefit cuts, demonstrate, disabilty march, london, protest, UK Uncut, welfare cuts
Bullies found guilty of murder in Stephen Lawrence case
13 Feb
(From left) Stephen Lawrence, Gary Dobson and David Norris
Over the holidays the court case about Stephen Lawrence has finished. We have written about this in our blog last June and November.
The bullies were in the gang who killed Stephen Lawrence and have been found guilty of murder and sent to prison.
They are called Gary Dobson and David Norris and they will be in prison for a long time. Some people think they should be in prison for a much longer time because it was such a terrible crime.
Even though this is a sad story, the one good thing is that it has got a lot of people in Britain talking about racism and what we can do about it.
I hope that this will help Duwayne, his family and the Lawrence family to move on. It has been very hard for them to lose Stephen but now there has been some justice for his death.
Tags: bullies, court case, david norris, gary dobson, justice, knife attack, murder, police complaints, prison sentence, racism, stephen lawrence, trial
Disability benefit cuts – we won!
3 Jan
I am really over the moon that we won against the Government about the Mobility Allowance part of disability living allowance. The Government are not going to take away the Mobility Allowance from disabled people who live in residential care.
We wrote about this in the blog in November 2011′s archive called, The Hardest Hit – Thousands march against disability benefits cuts. Annabel also went to London in May 2011 to protest about the cuts – see our blog in May 2011, Disability March on London!
Congratulations everyone, we have won! Let’s go celebrate and have a party!
This shows how great it is that disabled people and our friends and family in Britain have spoken up for our rights and won!
Tags: demonstration, disability benefits, disability living allowance, disabled people, DLA, Government, mobility allowance, The Hardest Hit
