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London: Gay hate crimes have risen 18%

by smkovalinsky | October 20, 2009 at 05:49 pm

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London police report a rise in hate crimes, and view this as a sign that people are reporting them, whereas in the past , they would have remained silent.

The number of homophobic hate crimes in London has risen by 18 per cent since last year, Scotland Yard figures show.
According to the statistics, 1,192 homophobic offences were recorded in the 12 months to September this year. Compared with 1,008 in the same period last year, this is a rise of 18.3 per cent.

The news comes just a week after the death of Ian Baynham, the 62-year-old gay man who was attacked by teenagers in Trafalgar Square. Three people have been charged with his manslaughter.

Police have described the rise as a positive sign, pointing to increased levels of reporting homophobic hate crime.

In July, figures showed an 13.5 per cent rise in gay-hate crime in the last 12 months.

At the time, the head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson, said that this was due to increased confidence in police but said more gays and lesbians who have been victims of such attacks must come forward.

Speaking at a press conference after the results were released, he said: "Do I think hate crimes are still going unreported? Absolutely, absolutely.

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Mritunjay

at 18:04 on October 20th, 2009

From Uganda to UK!

It's simply the lack of ability of people to accept humans as humans!

Hopefully police will also take strict action which will deter people to commit such crimes rather than just analyzing percentages.

Iffy (not verified)

at 22:26 on October 20th, 2009

Unfortunately, there have been social changes in the UK over the past ten years that roll back social progress on many fronts. The rise of Islamic fascism, white fascism, ultra-conservative religious cultures, and declining education levels amongst the young, all combine to make for a growing population of ignorant and intolerant people who see violence as the best way to communicate their feelings. In response, all the British government can offer is to build the most intrusive and corrupt surveillance system in the western world to spy on everyone. As can be seen from the attack in Trafalgar square, such a system is useless in stopping violence because the police are slow to respond and only follow up on crime at a later date. Real security comes from a tolerant population made up of decent people who do not think it is okay to attack people.