The inquest on the killing of learning-disabled Francecca Hardwick and the suicide of her mother Fiona Pilkington after being bullied by neighbours seems to have led to a change in the way such matters are reported in the press. Most of the daily and free newspapers have cited Mencap’s suggestion that hate crimes against disabled people should be treated as seriously as racist offences, and have reported that police ignored Fiona’s requests for assistance. This is probably the first time such a call has been widely aired in the media and given due weight. At the same time, the media have continued to spray the usual demeaning clichés over this story. Francecca is said to have had “a mental age of four”, thus perpetuating the demeaning representation of learning-disabled adults as mere children. Nevertheless, the equation of disablist attitudes with racist ones should lead the public to the wider, justifiable perception that alongside insitutionalised racism on the part of those enforcing the law there is also institutionalised disablism, and that it too needs to be tackled.