As if a disability wasn't bad enough

People with disabilities have enough to contend with in dealing with their daily lives and whatever "handicap" they have. It is therefore sad, and depressing to read, as this piece in The Independent reveals, that 12 months after the Paralympics in London, the disabled still face hostile or threatening behaviour.

"The vast majority of disabled people in Britain feel there has been no improvement in attitudes towards them a year after the Paralympics and many feel stigmatised as “benefit scroungers” while suffering hostility and abuse, a leading charity has warned.

Campaigners said the sea change in perceptions of people with disabilities generated by the London 2012 Games has been eroded by misleading rhetoric from politicians and within the media about welfare payments and a crisis in living standards for the disabled caused by spending cuts.

Twelve months to the day after the opening ceremony for the Paralympics, the host city for the Games – which thrust athletes such as Jonnie Peacock and Ellie Simmonds into the same spotlight as Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis – has one of the highest rates of attacks on disabled people.

A survey of 1,014 disabled adults by Scope found nearly one in four of those living in London has suffered hostile or threatening behaviour or been physically assaulted since the Paralympics. Across the country, 17 per cent of those with disabilities said they had been attacked.

Some 81 per cent said they had experienced no improvement in the attitudes shown towards them, while more than one in five of these said behaviour towards them had deteriorated since the Games. London also had one of highest rates of respondents saying attitudes had worsened with 24 per cent saying their treatment had declined."

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