Hate crimes soar to terrifying new high with police investigating hundreds of transphobic offences every month
The police officers referred to transgender people as “tranny faggots”, a misconduct panel heard.
UK police are investigating seven transphobic offences a day after hate crime reports quadrupled over a five year period – and experts believe the true number is much higher.
According to new Home Office figures, overall hate crime levels topped 100,000 for the first time last year, the highest number since records began in 2011/12.
The biggest proportionate rise was seen in transgender hate crimes, which soared by 16 per cent to 2,540 last year. There was a similar rise in homophobic hate offences which jumped by 19 per cent to 15,835.
When viewed over a five-year period the numbers are even more shocking: transphobic offences are shown to have quadrupled between 2014-15 and 2019-20, representing a 354 per cent increase.
Unfortunately, the UK’s only specialist anti-LGBT+ violence charity Galop believes these numbers are likely to be an under representation.
“We know from our own research at Galop that that only about one in seven trans people report their experiences to the police when they suffer abuse and violence,” Leni Morris, CEO of Galop, told the BBC.
“Unless trans people report what’s happened to them, and are empowered to report what’s happened to them, the systems won’t change.”
The Home Office claimed increased police recording were a “driver” in the rise in hate crime offences logged as well as the “growing awareness of hate crime”.
Responding to claims the rise is solely due to increased confidence in reporting to police, Nancy Kelley, chief executive of Stonewall, said: “We are definitely seeing a real increase in people reaching out for help across all of the LGBT+ organisations.
“So we are very concerned that this is a real rise in people who are being attacked because of who they are and who they love.
“We know that 80 per cent of LGBT+ people don’t report hate crimes. So this is really just the tip of the iceberg. One of the key steps to changing this is making it visible, and by standing up and saying that we shouldn’t have to experience this kind of hate and abuse.”
