What to do if you have experienced a hate crime or incident

If you have experienced a homophobically motivated crime or incident, then reporting it is an important step to take.

Reporting it to the police

There have been significant improvements in the way police forces around the country now respond to hate crime, including homophobic hate crime.

If you are a victim of homophobic or any other hate crime such as hate mail, verbal abuse, domestic violence, harassment or any other form of abuse please contact your local police.

Many forces now have LGBT Liaison Officers, Community Safety Units or other hate crime initiatives. Each force has its own services, but typically they include: encouraging reporting; supporting victims; responses to violent incidents, including very serious incidents like murder; and community liasion, including work with schools on homophobic bullying.

Even if your local police do not have anything set up to deal specifically with homophobic hate crime, you are still entitled to report this type of crime with the expectation that it will be dealt with professionally.

To find details about your local police go to: www.police.uk/forces.htm 

Third Party reporting

In some areas you can submit a third party report to your local police without actually having to liaise with the police themselves.

You can often do this through your local LGBT support or community group. To find one near you, see our Whats in my Area database.

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