Tag Archives: ignorance

Social murder July 2026

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I’ve followed the inquests of over 30 people with learning disabilities for a decade now through George Julian’s meticulous reporting. These began as live tweets, magnificent threads dripping with horror then shifted to lengthy daily summaries of proceedings. Each inquest, involving a much loved person who was revoltingly failed, is a difficult read, sometimes wincingly so. Daniel Lindsay’s inquest which ended on Friday was near impossible to follow. Daniel was a quiet, gentle 41 year old man who loved playing on his Playstation. George has written a comprehensive commentary about his inquest here.

In my book about social murder I write about a loose collective of people (health and social care professionals, politicians, policymakers, national charity staff, sometimes family members etc) who are implicated in these premature deaths. Loose collective members have varying layers of ignorance which relate to misunderstanding, ignoring or refusing to know what is happening, and where failings lie. The collective is loose because people can move in and out of it. Enlightened people who remove themselves from the collective are probably some of the best allies and activists in this area.

Daniel’s inquest had quite the cast of collective members. The most important being the coroner whose ignorance about people with learning disabilities made the skin on the back of my hands prickle. She insisted Daniel could not communicate despite evidence he was trying to communicate about his throat pain and discomfort over time from various witnesses. She accepted woeful evidence from a range of ‘experts’ who knew nothing about people with learning disabilities all of whom said nothing could have been done to change what happened.

That someone can die from choking because their undiagnosed throat cancer is so advanced is grotesque and can only be a massive red failure flag in terms of the provision of health and social care. The coroner went on to record her ignorance on public record by determining the cause of Daniel’s death as 1a) choking 1b) locally advanced oesophageal cancer and 2) Down syndrome and learning disabilities.

People cannot die from Down Syndrome and learning disabilities. That would be like dying from having curly hair or size 6 feet. Gruelling, unacceptable ignorance which blames Daniel for his death and absolves the myriad failings that led to it.

The government states coroners must ensure relevant facts are fully and fairly investigated and are the subject of public scrutiny during the inquest hearing. Coroners can’t be an expert in everything. That is why they call expert witnesses, to fill gaps with knowledge and experience. The coroner did not call an expert in learning disabilities despite stating she knows little about this area. She is an example of refusing to know which comes with chilling consequences given her role. Daniel’s family are devastated and crucial failings in his care have been left unchallenged.

Yet more evidence in the bulging evidence bank of social murder.

One of the action points of our recent Social Murder Festival is to contact the Chief Coroner about ignorance among coroners which urgently needs addressing. That this inquest unfolded at the same time as the festival speaks to how far we have to go. The festival itself, however, was a force for change, empowerment, hope and anger.

Onwards and upwards.

Revisiting tits and trolls

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A rare post about twitter. Sorry twitter haters. A while ago I wrote a pithy little number called ‘Of tits and trolls’.  Now, after getting the latest Moran storm tweeted into my timeline over the past 24 hours, I’m rethinking my support of the ‘block’ button. Basically Moran wrote a column about equality which started with a parody which was the only bit available to view online for non-subscribers of the Times. This caused offence. Moran has a bit of history of causing offence [sive].

Helen Lewis then wrote a laboriously detailed defence of Moran putting ‘everything’ in context. This has been retweeted off the planet. The trouble is, the context that Lewis draws on is sterile and stripped of the emotion, pain, devastation, weariness, tedium, injustice, discrimination, harm, exhaustion, etc, etc, etc, often experienced by the people who are so incensed by Moran’s careless journalism. For me, Lewis’s post reinforces some of the complacency and ignorance that tinges the writing of many journalists (not all of course) who have little or no understanding of what it is like to grow up outside of, or on the margins, of mainstream life.

Should Moran have some sort of insight or understanding of these experiences? I think she probably should given her position and reach. She’s in a position to make a difference. But there’s the block button. That protects Moran (and others) from having to engage with
difference. Well the block button and the concept of ‘troll’.  The trouble is, blocking ‘trolls’ (i.e., people who disagree with you) will lead to twitter becoming a tedious, turgid space where you’re surrounded by similar others, with your views and values protected as kind of cosily superior and untouchable. Instead of blocking, ignoring offensive posts is probably as effective. And allows space for discussion and change.

Clients. And the learning disability fug

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Some people may think I’m disproportionately enraged by what I’m about to recount. They may raise their eyes to the ceiling and think ‘What a bligey old fuss about nothing. Get over yourself lady’.* Well sorry, but I think they are wrong. It is important. And the mundane context makes it all the more important because of what it reveals.

So. I went to collect LB from his after school club this evening. This is now run by the Guidepost Trust, a registered charity that supports a range of people. On their website they state;

In all our projects and services we start from the view point that every person is special and deserving of dignity and choice and this ethos runs through the Trust.

Now, I don’t have a particular beef with the Guidepost Trust at all. I don’t think (or I don’t know if) they are any better or any worse than any of the numerous charities that provide similar services. They all spout the same sort of stuff, about person centred planning, choice, autonomy, and so on. They all have the same sort of websites, leaflets and so on. It all becomes a bit interchangeable really.

But anyway, back to today. I rang through on the internal phone for someone to bring LB out. (Yep, you don’t get to go into the after school club to collect them, they are escorted out, but that’s another story). While I waited in the foyer, I looked at the new display that had gone up on the noticeboard, with various bits of information. The after school club laminated timetable stated;

3pm: Clients are brought across from the primary school.

Clients? Clients??? From the primary school??? I can’t convey how wrong, and crushingly depressing it was standing there, waiting for LB to appear, looking at that sentence.

Why am I so upset, angry, depressed, furious and outraged by such a tiny sentence? Because it demonstrates the shallow, meaningless, ultimately pointless attitude social care services (and broader) have towards learning disabled children and adults. It highlights the way in which disabled children are effectively institutionalised from such an early age. There have, on paper, been huge shifts in policy and provision since the 1970’s and the move from residential to ‘community care’. The introduction of the concept of person centred care, direct payments, Valuing People, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. But for the bulk of learning disabled people, life remains pretty much as constrained, managed, exploited, abused, and perceived as worthless, as it was before the likes of the late Jim Mansell, and others, started to instigate change.

Ten years ago, David Race, in the introduction to his book – Learning Disability: A Social Approach – wrote;

I am struck by how many of the themes covered by the thesis cited at the beginning of this chapter [his PhD thesis on the historical development of service provision from the 1970’s] still remain. Congregation, segregation and devaluation even in the midst of community life all remain. Public fear of the ‘otherness’ of learning disability, stoked up further by a public media that seems unable to take a broad view on any issue, has left people in probably as vulnerable a position as thirty years ago when the scene was dominated by institutions.

Well, that still stands as far as I can see. And with the introduction of the Welfare Reform Bill, things can only get worse. Underlined by structures and processes that are steeped in meaningless rhetoric with no authentic engagement with the lives of learning disabled people or children. That no one involved in producing the after school club timetable could actually see outside of the learning disability fug of prejudice, lack of awareness and a carelessness (possibly created by attendance on relentless ‘professional’ courses) to suggest that perhaps ‘clients’ should be replaced with children or kids speaks volumes to me.

*I’ve left swears out of this post, even though they are pinging around my head, because my old ma keeps telling me to send these posts on to our MP (and he would be a bit put off by the colourful language).