Victims and witnesses with disabilities have been let down by the criminal justice system, the Director of Public Prosecutions said this week as he called for a change in society’s attitude towards disability hate crime.

Keir Starmer QC said victims and witnesses with disabilities ‘have not been served well by the criminal justice system’, in a speech at the University of Sussex.

He warned that thousands of disability hate crimes go unreported each year, and crimes such as name calling, bullying and harassment of disabled people are not fully understood by the general public, victims or those responsible for dealing with them.

Starmer said that while the Crown Prosecution Service has developed tool kits and policies to help them deal effectively with cases involving victims and witnesses with physical and mental disabilities, more work still needed to be done.

He said: ‘Evidence from some voluntary sector organisations suggest that prosecutors may be too ready to assume in some cases that victims and witnesses with disabilities are not reliable enough for a case to succeed, or that, even if reliable, that they would not be able to give evidence in a way that would be accepted by a court.’

Calling for a change in society’s attitude towards disability hate crimes, he said: ‘The idea of people being targeted as a victim of crime because of their disability is still relatively new.’

But he added: ‘Unless we as a society recognise and confront this issue, there is little prospect of more cases coming into the system, and we will have missed a valuable opportunity to tackle this important area.’ Starmer said the CPS would continue to work with colleagues in the criminal justice system and the voluntary and community sectors to develop best practice in this area.

He added: ‘We should not underestimate the task ahead, and, as I have already said, it is for society, too, to confront this issue.’