A decision by Tower Hamlets council’s speaker not to allow an emergency motion on hate crime was met with applause from the public at a council meeting – which prompted claims that was a homophobic act in itself

Labour Councillor Mufeedah Bustin, who proposed the motion, told Eastlondonlines: “When the speaker said that it wasn’t going to be accepted as an emergency motion, there were people in the public gallery who were applauding and that was really shocking and just awful.”

She added: “Councillor Peter Golds [the only openly gay councillor in Tower Hamlets who seconded the motion] said that’s an act of homophobia in itself and it’s disappointing that the speaker didn’t recognise that”.

Councillor Shafi Ahmed, the speaker of the council, which is controlled by the Aspire Party, said: “Whilst this is clearly an important issue, the reasons for urgency are not sufficient to accept this motion for debate”.

Bustin said she had proposed the motion due to the rising levels of hate crime against LGBTQI+ members in Tower Hamlets.

According to crime data from the Metropolitan Police, Tower Hamlets had the third-highest number of homophobic and transphobic hate crimes reported in any London borough between November 2021 and October 2022, behind Westminster and Lambeth.

There were 192 homophobic crimes and 17 transphobic hate crimes reported in the borough this year. And there was a 26.1 per cent rise in homophobic hate crime in the last year (ending October 2022), as compared to the previous twelve months (ending October 2021).

Bustin said new crime statistics that showed “a significant increase [in homophobic hate crime] since last year” as well as “what’s going on in Qatar and the lack of freedoms over there for the LGBTQI+ community”.

“There is definitely a sense that the authorities, and that includes the police, don’t necessarily have the knowledge, awareness and understanding of the LGBT community… and that needs to change particularly amongst the police”.

Severely violent hate crime has also become increasingly prevalent in Tower hamlets. Ranjith ‘Roy’ Kankanamalage, a gay man, was attacked and murdered in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in August 2021.

LGBTQI+ residents of Tower Hamlets interviewed by ELL agreed that the way in which previous homophobic hate crime has been handled, has resulted in a distrust of the police.

A gay resident from Tower Hamlets, who wished to remain anonymous, believes that the borough has low levels of clear up rates associated with hate instances against LGBTQI+ members: “There continues to be a need for the police to build trust and confidence”.

Another gay resident from Tower Hamlets, who wants to remain anonymous, told ELL about a homophobic encounter in Stepney Green: “As I was going back to my bike which I had chained up, two older school kids came up to me and said ‘Oh, I think you are very attractive’ and it was obviously an attempt to get me to engage because they were essentially being homophobic”. He added: “That was obviously designed to unsettle, whether they thought I was gay or not, it was homophobic. And they’d also let my tire down”.

However, he did not report the incident to the police because “it was over in ten seconds, I was never going to be able to identify them, they were never going to get caught”. He added: “It’s not always about catching criminals but making people safe”.