Rainbow Warriors stamp out hate crime
St.Helens Community Safety Partnership (CSP) has been flying the
flag in their bid to stamp out hate crime.
While hate crime (which includes offences motivated by
homophobia and transphobia) remains low in St Helens, all CSP
agencies take it extremely seriously knowing that it is still an
under-reported crime.
The Rainbow flag has been hoisted above the police station in
College Street to help raise awareness of the work being done on
hate crime done to coincide with International Day Against
Homophobia & Transphobia. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and
trans individuals often use rainbow flags or rainbow images as a
symbol of their identity or to show solidarity and support.
The CSP encourage hate crime victims to come forward and report
the incident, whether to the Police directly (999 or 101) or via
the independent, specialist, 24/7 national hotline 'Stop Hate UK'
(0800 138 1625, or text 07717989025).
Dedicated support is on offer, whether through the Police's
specialist Hate Crime Investigation Unit (the Sigma Team, based at
College St) or other local organisations (Fire Service, Housing
Associations, Social Care, etc) and community groups working to
tackle homophobia and transphobia (Armistead, Merseyside In-Trust
Network) Armistead: 0151-227-1931; In-Trust Network:
0151-928-2233.
Councillor Richard McCauley, Cabinet Member for Environmental
Protection and Sfer Communities at St.Helens Council said: "We know
that many people experience unfair treatment and unwanted behaviour
from a small bigoted and ignorant minority in our community.
No hate incident should be tolerated in a respectful society, this
includes name calling and bullying of any kind. We can only
take action against those who perpetrate homophobic and transphobic
hate incidents if decent people are brave enough to report it to
us. We have an excellent Hate Crime Team in Merseyside
Police. If it is happening to you, or someone you know then I
urge you to report it."
Sergeant Yoseph Al-Ramadhan (St Helens Sigma Unit, Merseyside
Police) said:
"We want people to feel confident to report not just hate crimes
but also any incident committed against a person or property that
is motivated by the offender's hate against people because of their
race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or because
they have changed their gender from one sex to another."
For more information log on to:
http://www.merseyside.police.uk/protecting-you/hate-crime.aspx
http://safer.sthelens.gov.uk/site.do?id=967
http://www.dayagainsthomophobia.org/-IDAHO-english,41-
http://www.homophobiaday.org/
http://www.idaho.org.uk/