As police held events to celebrate LGBT month, new figures show that reported homophobic attacks in Islington have shot up by 66 per cent in the last year, a bigger hike than any other borough.
There were 133 incidents in the year up to January, compared with only five in Barnet. Only Westminster, with 146, was higher. But police say that the rise is a good thing, claiming that it is due to their moves to encourage better reporting through outreach programmes and the introduction of third party reporting.
A police spokesperson said: “We don’t believe this represents a rise in the number of attacks, just the number of people reporting them. We’ve made great strides towards making it easier for people to report these kinds of incidents.”
A report by campaign group, Stonewall, claims that three quarters of those experiencing homophobic hate crimes do not report the incident. According to these findings, the actual number of hate crimes could be much higher in Islington.
A spokesperson for Stonewall said: “While some very good work has been done in engaging gay people it’s unclear whether this work alone is responsible for rises in reported homophobic attacks and incidents. For this reason Stonewall has called for a question on homophobic hate crime to be included in the British Crime Survey.”
