Brent Martin this weekend became the third person with learning disabilities to be killed in as many months. The 23-year-old was reportedly beaten to death by two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, and a 21-year-old, near his home in Sunderland. Their motive is unclear but police officers have been quoted as saying children often target people with learning disabilities.
Bullying is a daily reality for thousands of people with learning disabilities. Shockingly a survey by Community Care, carried out earlier this year, revealed that 16 per cent of respondents had been bullied on the street in the past year.
Some had stones thrown at their windows, many others said they were called names. As so-called low-level bullying, police are often powerless to take action against people intent on causing misery. Consequently, every day people with learning disabilities are victimised in their communities and their tormentors are able to evade punishment.
Their abuses are hate crimes but in many cases media reporting doesn’t make this link in the same way as it does with racially motivated attacks. But the trend seems to be changing, judging from the reports into Martin’s murder. And it is essential that the public is made aware of the appalling treatment meted out to people with learning disabilities and that its impact is compared to the damage inflicted on those on the basis of race or skin colour.
More and more people with learning disabilities are living independently in the community and so may potentially fall prey to the tiny minority of people intent on targeting those they see as vulnerable. So we need to be asking ourselves if agencies and the public, the majority of which are, after all, decent people, are going to face up to the responsibilities they have to better protect people with learning disabilities from those who want to do them harm.