Why elderly Scots are the REAL victims of hate crime
A shocking 100,000 pensioners are victims of violent, sexual and financial crimes every year. Now courts face demands to view age as an aggravating factor when punishing those who prey on OAPs
IT was well after dark when the stranger came calling. After a short delay, the door to the house in the smart Glasgow suburb of Bearsden was opened by an elderly lady. She caught the man saying something about conducting a survey and politely declined, moving to close the door.
The mystery caller, however, was in no mood to leave and instead attempted to force his way into her home. When she resisted, he fled the scene.
The frail occupant was left badly shaken but physically unharmed by her ordeal, which took place around 8pm last Saturday.
Kindly neighbours would try to reassure her that this was probably an isolated attack and she had just been unlucky. Sadly, this worrying tale was about to take a far more sinister turn.
Two days later, the same man returned to her door about 7pm and tried once more to push his way inside. The very sight of him back on her doorstep, threatening and aggressive, must have caused her blood to run cold. Somehow, she summoned the strength once more to repel him.
This time, though, her assailant stayed on the prowl. Half an hour later he struck again at a second address nearby, this time with even more devastating consequences.
An 81-year-old woman opened her door to a man claiming to be carrying out a survey. When she tried to stop him from entering her home, he sexually assaulted her.
The shock of reading those words will, rightly, bring many readers up short. Sex crimes are always despicable, but to hear of such a heinous act being committed against an elderly pensioner is almost beyond comprehension.
Police believe the same man was responsible for all three attacks and have released a detailed description of the suspect – Asian, aged between late teens and late 20s, up to 5ft 9in tall, of medium build with dark hair swept to the side.
Officers have been trawling any available CCTV footage and carrying out door-to-door inquiries but have so far failed to make an arrest.
It means that a predatory sex offender, who is ready to pounce on the frailest of victims, remains at large. The hope must be that he will be stopped soon and brought before the courts, who ought to throw the book at him. Except that the law lacks teeth when it comes to punishing offences against the weakest in society.
As things currently stand, judges are not obliged to consider a victim’s age and vulnerability when sentencing the perpetrators of such crimes.
WHILE those targeted because of race, sexual orientation or disability are already protected under hate crime legislation, there is no such statutory provision requiring the courts to treat a victim’s age as an aggravating factor.
Campaigners are lobbying Scotland’s Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf, whose 63-year-old father has been a victim of crime, to adopt such a measure, which was recommended in a recent review of hate crime laws by retired Court of Session judge Lord Bracadale. The judge’s report, published in May, called for ‘a new statutory aggravation based on age hostility’ and recommended a separate offence of ‘exploitation based on vulnerability’ should be introduced for the elderly.
If his lordship’s landmark proposals are accepted, it would make Scotland one of the first jurisdictions in the world to make such a provision and mean offenders should receive more severe sentences if convicted of crimes motivated by or involving hostility based on someone’s age.
The judge said: ‘The court would be required to state that fact on conviction and take it into account when sentencing.’
The aim is simple enough. Knowing their sentence could be significantly extended should act as a strong deterrent to those who prey remorselessly on the lonely, the vulnerable and the isolated in their own homes, either by scamming them out of money over the phone or online, or by attacking them on their doorsteps.
Yet some experts voiced concerns that a new law may prove unworkable unless the aggravating factor is clearly weighted towards the notion of a victim’s vulnerability, rather than simply their age.
‘Introducing age-related hostility as a hate crime only addresses a minority of crimes against older people,’ said Lesley Carcary, the director of the charity Action on Elder Abuse Scotland (AEAS).
‘After all, it’s hard to believe there are many people who are harming older people because of a hatred towards [them].
‘By bringing in a statutory aggravation based on vulnerability, Scotland has a real chance to lead the way in tougher prosecutions for those who harm or abuse not only vulnerable older people, but other vulnerable adults.’
The argument the elderly need better protection seems unanswerable. AEAS estimates around 100,000 older people in Scotland suffer some form of abuse each year. This can be physical, psychological, sexual or financial in nature and is often serious enough to constitute a criminal offence.
But the charity says many cases do not reach the courts and of those that do, many result in deferred sentences or community service rather than custodial sentences. But while the elderly may often feel neglected by society, they are rarely far from the thoughts of the criminal fraternity, who make it their business to seek out the aged and those in failing health for their own nefarious ends.
Data from Police Scotland showed that between April and September last year, 336 people were defrauded of a total of £420,000 by doorstep crooks.
Of them, 265 – or around 80 per cent – were pensioners.
Citizens Advice Scotland collected data about telephone and email scams showing that about 41 per cent of the older people they spoke to had been targeted in the past year.
In a survey of 2,010 Scottish pensioners, 824 said they had been contacted by scammers offering computer repairs, tax refunds and personal injury claims.
‘We tend to find most criminals deliberately choose older people either because they think they are vulnerable or because they have some information about them, like knowing the person lives alone or has been recently bereaved,’ Mrs Carcary said. ‘We also know that loneliness among older people is a huge problem and not just a social one. Being lonely puts the vulnerable at serious risk of abuse as well.
‘People use that loneliness to deliberately target them. We saw cases two years ago where certain local authorities handed older people call-blocking devices free of charge to prevent nuisance and scam callers from ringing them.
BUT some were handing them back because they were so desperately lonely they would rather speak to scammers than have nobody to speak to.
‘They will answer the door to anyone and they are faced by some pushy person who says they are selling this reclining chair or some other product and want to come in to talk about it and do a demonstration.
‘The lonely homeowner may not have spoken to anyone for a couple of weeks and suddenly here’s a
chance to make someone a cup of tea and have a chat. There is a misconception that older people fall for scams because they are gullible or have dementia or other mental health problems that has impaired their judgment, when actually these people sometimes have no issues with cognitive function, it is just they are so lonely.’
Loneliness and frailty is no match for the senseless brutality of a determined criminal. Acts of the most appalling violence towards mainly elderly women have been documented in recent years.
Drug addict Sandra Weir was jailed last year for at least 21 years after she bludgeoned 82-year-old Mary Logie to death with a rolling pin. Weir had befriended her neighbour only to drain her bank account to feed a habit. When Mrs Logie confronted her, Weir exploded in a murderous fury.
In 2014, when Polish labourer Robert Buczek was offered a glass of water by 85-year-old grandmother Eleanor Whitelaw on a scorching summer’s day, he repaid her kindness by dragging her through her home in Morningside, Edinburgh, before stabbing her seven times with her own scissors.
He then ransacked the Victorian villa looking for valuables.
Mrs Whitelaw – who was found lying covered in blood by her 88-year-old husband, Stan – died in hospital 17 days later.
Jailing Buczek for a minimum of 20 years at the High Court in Stirling, judge Lord Matthews told Buczek that Mrs Whitelaw’s murder had been ‘an atrocious crime’.
In 2011, Rosina Sutherland, 74, was raped and murdered in her sheltered accommodation in Edinburgh by convicted sex offender Kevin Rooney, who had 33 previous convictions and was out of prison on bail.
Rooney was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 21 years and four months.
In 2005, serial offenders Brendan Dixon, 42, and Patrick Docherty, 46, were sentenced to a minimum of 25 years each for the murder of widow Margaret Irvine, 91, in her Ayrshire home in what a judge described as ‘an act of sheer evil and depravity’.
On Christmas Eve 2004, 93-yearold widow Margaret Weir was stabbed to death with a penknife by intruder Daniel Jebb, who had forced his way into her home in Maryhill, Glasgow.
Sentencing Jebb, then 22, to life in prison with a minimum tariff of 16 years behind bars, Lord MacKay told the High Court in Glasgow that the murder had shocked not only neighbours but thousands of people across the city.
Such dreadful killings will always attract the stiffest penalty regardless of the age of the victim. For lesser crimes, though, prison is usually only considered for the worst offenders.
Last year, Darren Baxter, 28, was jailed for 30 months for planting maggots on the roofs of three victims aged 77 to 85 in the Central Belt, pretending their homes were infested with woodworm and trying to con them out of a total of £18,000 for unnecessary repairs.
In June, electrician Robert Vize was jailed for two years at Glasgow Sheriff Court for tricking 87-yearold James Fisher into paying £25,000 for work that was never carried out at his home in Rutherglen, Lanarkshire. Vize also took money from six other people.
Sheriff Alan Mackenzie noted that some of Vize’s victims were ‘vulnerable because of their age’.
Mrs Carcary said such tough action needed to be the norm. ‘Currently, any decision to impose a tougher sentence in cases involving older victims is at the discretion of the judge,’ she said.
‘That’s not good enough. What older people and their families need is the reassurance that criminals who prey on them will receive a punishment that fits the crime.’
Groups including the Faculty of Advocates, the Law Society of Scotland and Glasgow Bar Association cite such examples as evidence the existing law is ‘robust enough’ to deal with offences committed because of the perceived vulnerability of the elderly.
But charities worry that crimes, particularly financial abuse, are under-reported as many victims fear not being believed.
Brian Sloan, Age Scotland’s chief executive, said: ‘Older people often feel police and prosecutors do not take their reports of crime as seriously as they expect and there is a lack of follow-up.
‘By enhancing crimes as a result of age, such as scams, older people will feel better empowered, prosecutors will have more tools at their disposal and it will act as a deterrent as criminals will know they will be dealt with more severely.’
THE charities are due to meet Mr Yousaf next month and the Justice Secretary, whose father was attacked in February by two career criminals in his home near Glasgow, has spoken of his determination to act upon Lord Bracadale’s report after a rise in the number of his elderly constituents who had contacted him for help.
He said recently: ‘You hear more and more cases of people being scammed, exploited and defrauded because of their age. Obviously, I am a victim, numerous times over, of hate crime and I am trying to bring my own experience to this role.’
Politically, Mr Yousaf appears to be pushing at an open door. Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘The Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly called for those who target the elderly to face tougher sentencing.
‘Preying on the vulnerabilities of elderly people is particularly malicious and must be punished to a greater extent.
‘The SNP must adopt Lord Bracadale’s recommendation to include a vulnerable persons aggravator in sentencing and send the message that, as a society, this cruelty will not be tolerated.’
For all those elderly victims crime, a change in the law cannot come quickly enough. As Lesley Carcary points out, this can affect anyone of us when we grow old.
‘Even if you think you are not vulnerable now, you might be one day,’ she said.