Four Men Arrested in for Alleged Hate-Related Sexual Assault
Four men in the U.K. were quickly arrested just hours after they allegedly engaged in a hate-related sexual assault against a young woman last night.West Midlands Police arrested the four men, aged 18 to 22, after they were allegedly observed via CCTV assaulting a young woman in her 20s around 5:30 a.m.
yesterday morning on Hurst Street in Birmingham’s Gay District. According to police, the unnamed victim was verbally and physically assaulted at knifepoint.“We do not tolerate hate crime in our city and have recently set up a new StreetWatch in Birmingham’s Gay Village – the first of its kind in the country,” West Midland Police said in a statement.Police said they were able to quickly track down the men once an official police report was filed an hour later.“Our CCTV operators spotted the suspicious activity and when the crime was reported almost an hour later, they were able to back-track on the CCTV and direct officers to the suspects,” West Midlands Police posted to Facebook.
Hate crimes against LGBTQ+ have risen more than 200 percent between 2014 and 2021. The number is probably higher, but 90 percent of LGBTQ+ hate crime victims in the U.K.
do not report the crimes to the police.A queer couple was attacked in the same area in August 2021 by a group of men who threw bottles and physically assaulted the pair.
