On Wednesday 1 August, ARC CEO Jacqui Bell and Safety Net Project Officer, Rod Landman were interviewed live on ITV’s Central Tonight evening news.

Jacqui described mate crime as not only, ‘one of the cruelest crimes,’ but also one that’s ‘most likely to be unreported.’

With unofficial police estimates of 98% of learning disability hate crime going unreported it is extremely likely that the figure for learning disability mate crime is even higher than previously acknowledged.

As Rod highlighted when speaking to Central News, ‘it’s the everyday stuff that’s happening to people that’s every bit as important [as high profile murder cases]’ and, ‘If I was to talk to any one of our Members today, they’d be able to reel off 5 or 6 examples of an everyday mate crime that’s happening to their service users,’ such as low-level regular financial abuse.

It’s another important step in ARC’s campaign to raise awareness of mate crime amongst people with a learning disability, their families, supporters and the wider public.

You can view the interview on ARC’s YouTube channel: