Today, 30 April 2025, marks 26 years since the nail bomb attack on Admiral Duncan in Soho. Three people lost their lives and many were seriously injured in what was the third attack by a neo Nazi who also attacked the black and Indian communities. His hate was directed at people he considered ‘other’ and it seems more important than ever to not forget these hate crimes, those who died and were injured.
Before specialising in sexual crime, I would occasionally be asked to assess the risk and dangerousness of those charged with hate crime offences. It was always interesting to identify what had influenced the development of hatred in their lives and to the extent that it has manifested in often murderous behaviour. It was always horrifyingly poignant for me when defendants would quote distortions of christian teaching or church doctrine as a means of justifying their actions. Many did.
It is a chilling fact that when so called christians condemn LGBT people, in the myriad of ways that they often do, they are providing the fuel of hatred which others take up and later manifest in violent and deadly crime. The blood of LGBT people is not just on the hands of the guilty perpetrator, but it also extends to the hands of those who sow hatreds seed.
The laws concerning hate crime do not go far enough. They need to be extended and used against those who use faith as a vehicle of hate, for in clinical assessment terms they are indeed ‘very high risk of harm’.
Br Stephen Morris fcc
