Protesters win case against cabbie with mental illness

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When did a mass protest last achieve its aims? A couple of weeks ago, as it happens, when London's black cab drivers blocked streets to object to a man with a history of paranoid schizophrenia joining their ranks.

Now the man, who was jailed for killing his wife while mentally unstable, has been kicked off his course and told to find another vocation in life.

My previous blog about this drew, shall we say, less than 100% support.

But it was the protest by hundreds of London's cabbies, who until recently could include among their number a rapist and serial sex attacker, that helped to swing it. No wonder they are sensitive.

Yet seldom in modern times has a protest been so effective and so personal.

Transport for London has removed the man from his course, blaming his "wider criminal history", according to the BBC report.

Details, please. Because if the man has been committing criminal acts since his release, he would surely have found himself back in the clink.

Or are the demeanours so low-grade and so in the past that TfL has dragged them up as a convenient excuse to get rid of him.

Where, I wonder, does this leave the government's mental health anti-stigma strategy two years after its launch?

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This all begs the question, what is 'public service broadcasting news' doing to encourage people to report disability hate crime rather than participate in it?

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