AS the Crime Prosecution Service’s (CPS) Wessex Hate Crime Campaign, #HateCrimeMatters, drew to a close by focusing on disability hate crime, the CPS is urging victims to come forward to report such crimes.

Chief Crown Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec said: “Being targeted because you are perceived as being different can be devastating and it can have a long-lasting effect on the lives of those who are the victims of such appalling crimes.”

Ms Jakymec said: “As part of our CPS Hate Crime Campaign, we have focused on those crimes, which often have a disproportionate impact on the victim because they are being targeted for a personal characteristic or a perceived difference.

“We work closely with the police in identifying these crimes early on, we flag them on our case management system and our hate-crime coordinator works closely with our inclusion and community engagement manager to review these cases to decide whether a sentence uplift is applicable in those cases.

“We make our decisions in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and in accordance with our policies on hate crime.

“At court we make clear representations to draw the court’s attention to consider whether the offence should be classified agravated because the defendant was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on the complainant’s difference.

“The CPS takes hate crime cases very seriously and we work very closely with our criminal justice partners to tackle this odious crime. In Wessex our Hate Crime conviction rate is of 91 per cent, however we are mindful not to be complacent, and our prosecutors remain dedicated to bring offenders before the court.”

One such crime was dealt with at Basingstoke Youth Court on July 7 this year when a 17-year-old boy received a 12-month youth rehabilitation order for criminal damage, increased by six months after the court acknowledged that the offence was aggravated because the defendant showed hostility toward the victim’s disability.

James Burnham, hate crime co-ordinator for CPS Wessex, said: “Mocking, intimidating and targeting someone because of their disability is utterly unacceptable. Perhaps offenders think that victims, because of their disability, either cannot defend themselves or are too scared to do so. What they may forget is that the best way for victims to protect themselves is to report these incidents to the police.

“Our aim, with the police, is to bring these offenders before the court and for the public to know what pernicious crimes they have committed.

“In this case the defendant kicked the front door of a building in Winchester where the victim happened to be. He verbally abused the victim after she had challenged him on his behaviour and clearly targeted her disability when making a threat to ‘batter’ her and calling her ‘retarded’, a ‘disabled …’ alongside other appalling insults. The victim suffers from cerebral palsy athetoid, which affects the right side of her body.

“In her victim personal impact statement she explained that it was clear to the defendant that she was disabled as she walks with a stick, can only use one arm to complete tasks and has involuntary movements. She added that she truly believed that it was the defendant’s intention to cause her distress.”

Mr Burnham continued: “We would like to praise the victim for her bravery in contacting the police.

“As a result the defendant was arrested, brought before the court and due to the compelling evidence gathered in this case he was left with no choice but to plead guilty.

“Our prosecutor at Basingstoke Youth Court made it clear that the defendant’s criminal behaviour was agravated because he showed hostility towards the victim’s disability and as a result his sentence received a six-month uplift.”

While this was the final case to be flagged up as a result of the CPS Hate Crime Campaign, Mr Burnham said that he hoped that this case, and others like it, would encourage victims and witnesses to come forward and report hate crimes so that “these offenders to be brought before the courts.”