Homophobic Hate Crime Reports Have Increased In The UK But Crime Charges Have Decreased
A new report from BBC 5 Live now shows that although reports of homophobic crimes have increased in the UK by more than double, rising from 5,800 in 2014-2015 to 13,530 in 2018-2019, the number of people charged or issued with court summons has decreased from 1,157 in 2014-2015 to only 1,058 in 2018-2019.
A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said “many of the crimes involved no witnesses and a lack of evidence.”
“Targeting someone because of their sexuality is completely unacceptable. It undermines our fundamental human right to feel safe and can have a devastating impact on victims and the wider community,” they said.
“Police will investigate crime reports and will pursue action against those responsible where there is evidence to do so. Unfortunately, with many cases, there are often no witnesses to these crimes and scarce evidence – this may lead to police being unable to identify a suspect.”
“We recognise that our sanction detection rates have fallen … as many of these non-violent offences present less evidential opportunities and victims often feel that there is a barrier between bringing the matter to court and prefer to make police aware of each offence,” a spokesperson from the Metropolitan Police said.
“We are committed to improving our total number of sanction detection rates and successful prosecutions and continue to remind communities to report hate crimes even if they do not want to go to court as it helps the police to provide a true picture of the abuse.”
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