York student shares experiences of disability hate crime
Police say hate crime has no place in North Yorkshire
A York student's trying to raise awareness of disability hate crime after being screamed at for simply trying to park her wheelchair on board a bus.
Azariah Mykel says she gets abuse so often that she's started recording her journeys.
She says it happened last week after she asked a family to move their pram so she could use the disabled bay. She has told us: "When they refused to move I ended up just travelling in the middle of the aisle, if the bus had crashed or anything, everything would have gone wrong. People were literally having to climb over me to get off at their stop because they refused to get out of the space."
Latest figures show 1,158 hate crimes have been reported to North Yorkshire police in the year to August.
North Yorkshire Police Superintendent Mark Khan says: “Hate crime blights our communities and we are absolutely committed to driving it out. At North Yorkshire Police we treat every report of hate crime very seriously. Our role is to keep our communities safe and we know just how damaging hate crime can be. By reporting hate crime you will not only receive support yourself, but you may also be helping support the rest of your community by making sure this behaviour is not tolerated. Let’s be clear, hate crime has no home here in North Yorkshire.”