Specialist police officers are being recruited in Wales to combat gay hate crime in a move to encourage victims to report attacks and abuse.
Gwent Police have recruited 14 liaison officers and support staff, who are to be charged with communicating with gay inhabitants, providing support for victims and giving advice to fellow officers on gay issues.
Assistant Chief Constable Simon Prince told the BBC: “It is estimated that one in 12 people in [the] Gwent [force area] classes him or herself as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender which is a significant number of people.
“We hope that the introduction of LGB&T liaison officers will encourage members of the community to report hate crimes which are traditionally under reported.
“If we can encourage greater reporting it will enable us to gain a greater understanding of hate crime and the extent to which people are suffering but also to better enable us to tackle it.”
Members of the Hampshire constabulary, which has had a similar specialist force since 1996, have trained the new officers, who are not necessarily gay themselves.
Figures released earlier this month showed a total of 52,028 crimes were recorded across Britain, Wales and Scotland last year in which the offence was motivated by prejudice. 4,805 of which were linked to homophobia – 505 more than the previous year.
Responding to the findings, Mark Williams of Safer Wales said: “In the field of hate crime one of the main issues is under-reporting.
“In recent years we’ve seen several reports highlighting that only one in four cases of homophobic or racist abuse are reported. For people with learning disabilities the numbers are even lower with research suggesting only one in ten cases are reported.”
