Written by Siobhan Meade
Disclaimer: this is a personal blog by a BuDS member. The views expressed are personal, and don’t necessarily represent those of BuDS or our Trustees.
24 years ago, I heard five words that will haunt me forever, “you’re never going to see again”.
This is how an Ophthalmologist at a Kent hospital broke the news to a distraught 16 year-old girl, who’s one remaining optic nerve finally gave up the ghost and snapped after I walked into a door at school.
My sight was never great. I was born totally blind, but surgeons operated and recovered some sight. They removed my lenses, which were covered in congenital cataracts but also, one accidentally cut the optic nerve behind my left eye. Until that fateful day in 1999 when I lost it all, I grew up with a faction of a perception of vision. I couldn’t recognise faces that were more than a foot away. I didn’t know my family until they spoke.
This was, and is, my life. Without touching on the emotional trauma of learning to do everyday tasks, you’d think you’d had all the bad luck you could in life. For many years this was true.
Imagine though what it might feel like leaving your home, walking tentatively around when you can’t see a thing.
Scary?
Well let’s inject the first major hate crime I experienced when I moved to Stevenage in Hertfordshire in 2014. I was called the most offensive words involving the word blind. I was accused of faking my blindness and one group of teenagers thought it would be funny to find out how much I could see by saying they would rob me.
If they set out to terrify me, they achieved their goal.
“If they set out to terrify me, they achieved their goal.”
A few days later and I was abused again by someone who thought it would be funny to direct me in to a lamppost and voiced that they were recording it for YouTube. The abuse became more regular. We reported it to the police. Most officers were completely supportive and understanding. One middle ranking officer, an Inspector, voiced his opinion to other police officers that we must have been the unluckiest couple in Stevenage. Not as unlucky as him when police officers who we knew repeated it. Without identifying any individual, his attitude was typical of an older era of policing where it seemed the priority was negating responsibility for the increase in hate incidents and blaming it on the victim rather than policing and making the neighbourhood safer. It really made me lose confidence in policing and we felt that we were effectively being accused of lying.
Siobhan with her guide dog ‘Marty’
After a few days passed, and more abuse happened, we laid our hands on body worn video cameras – the exact unit used by London’s Metropolitan Police Service to this day, the Taser Axon body camera. We recorded a number of incidents to show the reality that we were being gaslit by this now retired inspector to believe simply didn’t exist.
We stopped reporting incidents for some time. Hertfordshire police however are much more progressive now in my opinion than they were at a time when we were described as the unluckiest couple in Stevenage. I mean we were unlucky but only to receive such an appalling attitude from someone who should have been looking out for us. Now, Hertfordshire police have dedicated hate crime officers and more recent reports of antisocial behaviour have been received openly.
For more than a year though, the hate continued. The threats of violence became daily. I didn’t want to step outside of my front door. I’d stay at home crying and my already isolated existence became unbearable.
It was about a year later that I started giving talks to schools locally under a respect agenda and it was then that people who knew the haters challenged their behaviour.
I do still get unkind comments, and unfortunately I have never totally recovered my faith from being gaslit by the now retired officer but I would encourage people to report incidents, if not directly to police, but through third party reporting sites such as True Vision and the soon to be launched, BuDS Victim Support and Reporting Service.
If you feel like you have been discriminated against, would like further advice, or would like to share your own experiences, you can contact the BuDS Victim Support and Reporting Service on hatecrimesupport@buds.org.uk.
If you are in immediate danger, please call 999 or if you would like to report a crime to the police that is not in progress please call 101 or report online https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/ro/report/hate-crime/hc-av1/report-hate-crime/