There are more than 400 kinds of dwarfism affecting the lives of approximately 6,000 people in the UK. As with any kind of disability, people with dwarfism are often targeted in muggings and violent assaults and, unfortunately, with an increase in “dwarf tossing” as a pub game (where people with dwarfism rent themselves out to be thrown at a velcro wall) there has been an increase in people with dwarfism being attacked in the street and thrown by drunken revellers as a “prank”.

These particular assaults have resulted in people with dwarfism sustaining injuries and have also seen one person die from those injuries (Harry Potter actor Martin Henderson).

The release of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2017 showed a scene where people with dwarfism were thrown around an office for entertainment, and this saw another sharp rise in physical assaults against people of short stature. This in turn prompted members of Short Stature Scotland to visit our Centre in November 2017 to discuss the possibility of our charity developing a Personal Safety course specifically for people with this restricted growth condition.

The “taster” course was run in our Centre over a weekend in February 2018 and was hugely successful. Members of Short Stature Scotland travelled from all over Scotland to attend and members of Restricted Growth Association UK travelled up from England to attend.