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Values Into Action The UK wide campaign with people who have learning disabilities Within our society today crime against people with learning difficulties has long been ignored or ‘downgraded' as abuse rather than crime. Time and again perpetrators of crime against people with learning difficulties are either excused their criminal actions because their victims have learning difficulties, or escape justice because their evidence is given greater weight than that of their victims. Victims of crime who have learning difficulties often find themselves penalized twice, as their freedoms are further restricted in order to ‘protect' them from further crime while their persecutors walk free. VIA applaud the decision to award damages to Donal MacIntyre following his libel action against the Kent police. The action was in response to statements made by Kent police regarding the integrity of a particular episode of MacIntyre Undercover aired in November 1999. In the episode in question MacIntyre exposed ‘a culture of neglect' in a privately run care home where adults with learning difficulties were exposed to threatening and humiliating behavior, sometimes leading to physical assault. Despite the closing of the Brompton care home involved Kent police refused to withdraw their original statements suggesting that the documentary had been misleading and had lead to a waste of police time. Dr Jean Collins, Director of VIA said: Though recent changes in law and criminal justice guidance should lead to people with learning difficulties getting a fairer hearing by the criminal justice agencies, old prejudices dies hard. VIA will continue to fight against those prejudices and support those, like Donal MacIntyre who help bring them to light. True to a pledge made while speaking at a VIA' Speak Out Conference (Feb 2001) Donal has donated a substantial portion of the damages awarded from the case to support VIA's campaign to open the gateways of the criminal justice system to people with learning difficulties.
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