Dr. Jennifer Schweppe:

Yes, we had a short discussion about this previously. I know from practice that Senator Ward might be more familiar with how the term would be interpreted. It is interesting that he raised the question of “protected characteristics”. Professor Haynes and I are reasonably happy with the approach that is taken. We think that having a stated framework for how it was determined which characteristics were included in the legislation and which were not would be helpful. Cognisant of the concerns that Dr. Taylor has expressed with respect to disability hate crime – we know that even with the demonstration test in England and Wales, it is extremely difficult to get a conviction for a disability hate crime - we have proposed the use of the term "contempt" in the definition of hate. As Senator Ward says, the legislation uses just the word “prejudice”, whereas we would advocate for a broader definition there to include hostility bias, prejudice, bigotry or contempt. By using the "contempt" definition, which was recommended to us by Inclusion Ireland in our Out of the Shadows research in 2015 and then also recommended by Judge Desmond Marrinan in the Northern Ireland hate crime review committee report, we think that may go some way to address the concerns people have. While some of the manifestations of disablist hate crime are not driven by prejudice, we think that if we include "contempt" that may allow for a broader framework to address that particular manifestation of hate crime. I hope I have answered the Senator's question. He should let me know if I have not.