3:30pm Friday 11th December 2009
By Tim Ridgway
A community group is to be set up to scrutinise how the police look into gay hate attacks.
Members of Brighton and Hove’s LGBT community have suggested residents have lost confidence in the way Sussex Police and Brighton and Hove City Council deal with homophobic crime.
It follows the results of the Count Me in Too study which revealed only one-in-seven hate crimes believed to have occurred in the city have been reported.
Now key figures in the LGBT community have agreed to set up a new panel to look at the issue after a public meeting organised by LGBT community forum Spectrum.
Statistics from Sussex Police reveal the highest proportion of homophobic crimes occurred in St James’s Street and the New Steine area.
The trend is for them to happen between midnight and 5am.
To contact the new group email info@spectrum-lgbt.org.
Have you been a victim of homophobia? Send your messages to tim.ridgway@theargus.co.uk.
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