Man Left Too Scared To Leave His House Due To Homophobic Bullying

Southwark News yesterday published an article about a 22 year old gay man living in the London borough that shows just how life destroying being the subject of homophobic bullying can be.

Saying that he is too scared to leave his house because of the fear of being beaten up, he said: “I haven’t seen my friends in eight months because of all this abuse. I won’t go anywhere on my own – I have to get walked off the estate by members of my family.”

Using a false name in the article, “Daniel” said that he had been bullied for as long as he could remember, and that whilst that to start with was due to him being overweight, he said that it turned to homophobic abuse when they realised that he was gay, with people throwing sticks and stones and rubbish onto his balcony and shouting abuse such as:

“’You fat c***, you poof, we know it’s you that’s grassing. We are going to get you”

Saying it’s lead him to feel both depressed and anxious, Southwark  News reports that sadly Daniel is far from alone with there being a reported 40% rise in homophobic crime in the borough last year  and no longer has a full-time LGBT (lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender) officer to help deal with it

Whilst the police and council have acted to deny the increase is real but more down to a difference in how crime is recorded, the LBGT charity Stonewall believe otherwise, with a spokesman saying:

“YouGov research for Stonewall shows that one in five lesbian and gay people have experienced a homophobic hate crime in the last three years. Three in four of those experiencing hate crimes didn’t report them to the police, because they believe the police cannot or will not do anything about it.

“Without dedicated LGBT liaison officers and visible steps to ensure all officers are confident in tackling this problem, lesbian and gay people are likely to be even more reluctant to report these crimes.”

Daniel understandably says he wants to move away from the area, however the council does not believe he is at “serious risk” and so will not move him till a flat comes up which could be up to six years. Saying that this left him with a difficult decision of whether to stay and look after his mother, for whom he is a carer, or move away, he said:

“I have not slept properly in two months. I am still up tossing and turning – everything runs through my head… They aren’t going to help me until they see me down on the deck. They want my blood basically.”

A council spokesman responded saying they did carry out a risk assessment but it was decided that he was not suitable for moving because:

“…. Daniel is not a tenant or deemed at serious risk, his best option would be to seek private accommodation, which we will help him to do.

“We also referred him to Bede [a community based charity, offering services for local residents], for help dealing with any hate crime. As a local authority we are obliged to allocate social housing giving preference to those deemed to have a priority for housing.

We will continue to support Daniel as much as we can and sincerely hope that he finds suitable private accommodation as soon as possible.”