Human rights champion raises concerns about hate crimes against LGBTQ+ community going under-reported

The comments have been made by Sheffield human rights champion, Chrissy Meleady, chief executive of Equalities and Human Rights UK, who says ‘there remains concern in the community and across those advocating for the LGBTQ+ people, that under-reportage may very well be ensuing’.

The most recently available data shows that the number of hate crimes reported to South Yorkshire Police (SYP) between the financial year 2019/20 and the financial year 2020/21 increased in almost all categories, except for those relating to transgender people, for which there was a 12 per cent decrease.

The figures, which have been published by the Government, reveal that the total number of hate crimes reported to SYP increased by 15 per cent, rising from 2,931 in 2019/20 to 3,383 in 2020/21 and similarly, during the same period, the number of hate crimes relating to race increased by 22 per cent; hate crimes relating to religion rose by 9 per cent; reported crimes relating to sexuality increased by 3 per cent and disability-related hate crimes increased by 17 per cent.

In addition to concerns about under-reporting of hate crimes, Chrissy also raised concerns about the Government ‘inflaming discrimination’.

She said: “On the ground, we have been seeing, increasing attack, hostility and discrimination towards LGBTQ+ people.

"It doesn't help that the Government are inflaming discrimination either, for example by them not affording trans people protection from conversion therapies, inclusive of members being coercively subjected to exorcisms to rid them of their trans identities.

“We urge people to come forward and report all LGBTQ+ Hate Crimes to South Yorkshire Police. There is no place in our society for hatred towards LGBTQ+ people".

A spokesperson for SYP said that while they believe a factor in the increase in reported hate crimes being due to people feeling more confident about reporting offences to the force, staff have also been given training to ensure they are better equipped to recognise when a hate crime has taken place.

They added: “We know that there is still work to be done and that there will continue to be some under-reporting of hate crime offences. There were 10 fewer reports of transgender hate crimes received in 2020-21 compared to the previous year. It is difficult to know exactly why this is, but we certainly don’t believe that this is because crimes are not happening because we know they are. There have been many national and even international news stories about the transgender community that individuals may find frightening and isolating, which could be having an impact on whether they’ll report a crime to police or another agency.

“We want to reassure people that all forms of hate crime have no place here in South Yorkshire, and any complaint made to us will be taken extremely seriously and treated with the utmost respect. We would encourage anyone who is experiencing verbal abuse, harassment, intimidation or violence to report it to us so that we can tackle it effectively.”

The SYP spokesperson continued: “Hate crime offences have been shown to be on the rise, however we believe people’s confidence in reporting offences to us to be a factor in this.

“The rise in reporting we are seeing is down to a number of factors including better education and previous under-reporting of hate crime. We have worked with our partners to ensure more people have the confidence and awareness to come forward and report this type of crime to us. Hate crime incidents cover a broad range of offending and can occur in everyday, normal situations.

“We thank people for having the faith in us and the courage in themselves to report these offences. We commend all of you that do. Without this, we would have a harder time piecing together where offences were being committed which makes enforcement difficult, but also prevention too.

“But also, at South Yorkshire Police we have provided training for our call handlers and crime recorders so that they are better at recognising when a hate crime has taken place and more of these offences are now being recorded correctly which may have been missed previously.

“We continue to work hard to engage with local communities to encourage them to report any incidents of hate crime and to work towards tackling these issues. Working alongside partners, a number of third party referral centres have been set up to take reports of hate crimes across South Yorkshire so we can encourage more people to report hate crimes in their communities and we can continue the conversation around hate crime and how to prevent it.

"We also have four Hate Crime Co-ordinators working to tackle these issues who are actively involved in collaborating with partner agencies to create effective joined-up working.

The next release of Government data into the number of reported hate crimes, covering the 2021/2022 financial year is set to be released in October 2022.