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Police in London Crack Down on Gay, Race and Other Hate Crimes

Over 200 arrested in the capital

LONDON, May 20, 2009  –  The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) today carried out raids across London to crack down on domestic, homophobic, transphobic, race and other forms of hate crime in Operation Athena.

A spokesperson said this evening that as of 5pm there had been 202 people arrested in the crack-down. There was no figure on how many of these were for homophobic hate crime.

Operation Athena, running to mark the International Day Against Homophobia which was on Sunday, is designed to focus on bringing offenders to justice.

The MPS will be proactively targeting dangerous and prolific offenders across the 32 boroughs in London, as well as carrying out high visibility patrols, and working with Safer Neighbourhoods Teams to encourage victims to come forward and report to us directly, or through a third party.

Hate and faith crime includes racist, homophobic and disability motivated crime, as well as crimes against adults at risk or older people by members of their own family or carers.

“Athena is now in its ninth year, and we retain a relentless commitment to tackling all forms of domestic violence, homophobic, transphobic and other forms of hate crime, whilst continually improving our services to victims and potential victims,” said Acting Detective Superintendent Gerry Campbell, who heads Operation Athena.

“Today's operation sends out a clear message: violence in any form is unacceptable.  We will continue to proactively identify, arrest and seek the prosecution of violent people.

“We now have public protection groups in every London borough, dedicated to proactively investigating a wide range of domestic violence, hate and sexual crimes perpetrated by violent and dangerous offenders,” he pointed out.

“We remain concerned that such crimes remain unreported, which we understand can be for a number of different reasons.

“However, we would like to urge any victims of such crimes to come forward and speak with us.  We have access to dedicated, specialist care to support you and keep you safe.

“I want to personally appeal to victims to report these hurtful, sensitive and insidious crimes directly to police or through a third party or non-police reporting site.”

The MPS has 215 lesbian gay bisexual and transgender liaison officers working across all of London’s 32 boroughs advising, guiding and supporting police officers and staff in their everyday dealings with LGBT people who live, work and visit London

Last financial year (Apr 2008 to March 2009) there were 52,956 reported domestic violence offences, and a 72.9% arrest rate for this crime.

For the same period, racial offences totalled 4,203 and the sanction detection rate increased by around five per cent from the same period the previous year.  The sanction detection rate for homophobic offences also rose by 3.7% for the same period.

There are many ways of reporting hate crimes, including the non-emergency 0300 123 1212 number, via the Metropolitan Police website www.met.police.uk .

In addition, all boroughs in London have third party or non-police reporting sites for example www.galop.org.uk , www.londonfriend.org.uk and the helpline for the Lesbian and Gay switchboard on 020 7837 7324.

Details of the local LGBT police liaison officers can be found online at www.met.police.uk/contacts/LGBT.htm

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