A dramatic increase in homophobic hate crime in Newham and London has prompted a call for more action from the police and civic leaders.

Local campaigners say there has been a third annual increase in attacks and hate crimes since 2019, with incidents of verbal hate speech, harassment, stalking and attempted acid attacks across the Borough and in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

“Last summer homophobic attacks in London rose to a shocking 10-year high as nearly 400 offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police in the month of June alone,” said representatives of Forest Gayte Pride, Maryland Community Group and Queer Newham in a letter to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick; Mayor of London Sadiq Khan; Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz; and to Greater London Authority members including Unmesh Desai, the GLA Member for City and East.

The figures, they warn, are likely to be much higher as research has found that more than three quarters of LGBTQ+ people who experience hate crime, particularly young victims, do not report it to the police.

“The above represents the worst record for anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in London since records began (April 2011),” say the campaigners.

“Worryingly 399 homophobic hate crimes recorded in June 2021 included 52 attacks targeting trans people, again, the highest number on record. The most high-profile LGBTQ+ murders in the last seven years have occurred in East London with victims such as Ranjith Kankanamalage, Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor.”

The group says the LGBTQ+ community in Newham have had no assurances from Newham Council, Metropolitan Police, or the Mayor of London that necessary measures are being taken “to protect our members from abuse and violence so that they can feel confident in coming forward reporting hate crime incidents, let alone any details of mitigation”.

The letter calls for the establishment of a working group “with budgets and powers to transform change, none of which has been announced”.

They say examples of failure in policy include a lack of funding from Newham Council for organising the only Pride event in the Borough of Newham for Forest Gayte Pride. They also point to the fact that streets and policing are not designed with consideration for queer, feminist and racial geographies which lead to marked inequalities in access to and safety in public space in Newham.

“Many of our members report up to a four-month wait for a simple update that their reported hate crime is even being investigated by the Met; this leads to apathy in our community, ” they say.

However a step change is possible by adopting ‘community policing’ and physical improvements to public spaces, they say.

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