Record attacks on people from alternative sub-cultures as hate crimes, says mother of attack victim Sophie Lancaster
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Version 0 of 1. The mother of a young woman who was murdered for being a goth is calling on police forces to start recording attacks on people from alternative sub‑cultures as hate crimes. Sophie Lancaster, 20, was kicked and stamped upon as she cradled her injured boyfriend, Rob Maltby, when they were viciously attacked by a group of youths in a Lancashire park in 2007. While he survived the attack, she died in hospital 13 days later. Two boys were later jailed for life for her murder. Ahead of the eighth anniversary of Sophie’s death, her mother, Sylvia Lancaster, will make an impassioned plea for goths to be given “equal status” in law as other minority groups are. “I want every police force in the country to take steps towards giving goths and people from alternative sub-cultures the recognition they deserve under the law and for attacks on them to be recorded as hate crimes,” she told The Independent. “Some forces say it would mean changing their systems and others say these issues don’t happen in their area, but the reality is that all areas of the country have these issues. The fact that people do not report this type of crime at the moment doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” Ms Lancaster said that “people from alternative cultures are not going to report these cases at the moment because they don’t feel they are going to be taken seriously. Changes need to be made to give them the confidence to contact the police.” She will make her plea in a talk at the University of Manchester’s Neo-Gothic John Rylands Library, where a major art exhibition, Darkness and Light: Exploring the Gothic, is opening. Greater Manchester Police was the first force in the country to begin recording the attacks in 2013. Seven police forces in England and Wales now report these cases as hate crimes, but it is understood an eighth force is also expected to start monitoring them soon. One force, Warwickshire Police, told The Independent it had six cases in 2014 and another six cases so far this year for hate crimes where the victim was recorded as having an “alternative culture and lifestyle”. Another force, West Mercia, said it had 29 cases in 2014 and 18 cases so far this year. Ms Lancaster, who was awarded an OBE last December for her work to tackle hate crime, said: “We always knew that Sophie was different. She never liked dressing up and always wore grey T-shirts and grey sweat pants. “As she got older and met similar people, she just blossomed. She was a good girl. She was very intelligent and she read voraciously. “What happened was just so completely shocking. Even eight years on, it seems as though it just happened yesterday.” |