It's time every police force atoned for its homophobic witch-hunts

Independent

19-06-2025

At the height of the Aids crisis in the 1980s, when hundreds of gay men were suffering slow, agonising deaths, the then-Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP), James Anderton, denounced gay people as "swirling in a human cesspit of their own making'.
His words were not mere rhetoric. Homophobia informed operational policing. GMP officers were directed to illegally harass gay venues, including the notorious raid by 23 police on Napoleon's bar in 1984. The membership list, including names and addresses, was illegally seized, and patrons were lined up against the wall and unlawfully photographed. Some had their feet deliberately stamped on.
Regular police raids on the New Union pub, Rembrandt Hotel and the Clone Zone shop were acts of vindictive police harassment. Manchester police openly boasted: 'We've been trying to close these queer places for years.'
However, in response to my Peter Tatchell Foundation's #ApologiseNow campaign, 21 out of the 45 Chief Constables in the UK – including the Metropolitan Police, Merseyside and Police Scotland – did just that, with many also implementing new LGBT+ supportive policies. They recognised the injustice done.
In contrast, the GMP's Chief Constable, Stephen Watson, refused to apologise – as did his counterpart at West Midlands Police (WMP), Craig Guildford. They suggested that either there was no evidence of anything that justified an apology or that any claimed wrongdoing happened too long ago to matter.
Their refusal is even more shocking given that GMP and WMP were historically two of the most viciously homophobic forces in the country, with gay arrest rates much higher than average. WMP compounded their insult by their double standards. They rightly apologised in 2020 to the black community for their long history of police racism, but they refuse to do the same to the LGBT+ community.
On top of that, WMP had me forcibly removed from the recent Birmingham Pride parade after I criticised their refusal to apologise. They falsely claimed I did not have permission to be there and that the organisers asked for me to be removed. The latter has confirmed that both these claims were fabrications.
The GMP and WMP Chief Constables have snubbed their own National Police Chiefs Council lead on LGBT+ issues. Northumbria Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine wrote to all Chief Constables over a year ago, urging them to review our request for an apology for historic anti-LGBT+ persecution.
She had a good reason. In the decades before the full decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales in 2003, police across the UK went out of their way to target and arrest thousands of gay and bisexual men for consenting, victimless behaviour. They went far beyond merely enforcing anti-gay laws and did so in a manner that was often illegal and sometimes violent.
Couples were arrested for kissing, which was not a crime. Officers burst into private birthday parties whose partygoers were shoved and called ' f***ing queers' and 'dirty poofs'. At closing time for bars and clubs, police would harass men chatting on the pavement outside. Those who hesitated to disperse or questioned the lawfulness of police harassment were threatened and sometimes arrested and beaten up.
It's little wonder that the police were reviled by many as 'queer-bashers in uniform'. In a raid on a bar in 1971, I was made to strip to my underpants in the street on a freezing cold October night. An officer squeezed my testicles until I screamed. I remember being stopped at a train station and quizzed and sneered at because I was wearing a gay badge.
This was typical of the everyday petty police harassment that we endured. Police waged witch-hunts motivated by personal, and sometimes religious, prejudice against gay and bisexual men. They selected young, good-looking officers and got them to dress in a gay style, with tight-fitting jeans and leather jackets. These so-called 'pretty police' were deployed as agent provocateurs in parks and public toilets to entrap men into committing offences before a hidden squad swooped in and made arrests.
Some forces had a policy of releasing the names, addresses and workplaces of arrested men to the newspapers – sackings and evictions often followed. With the stigma of a criminal conviction for a homosexual offence, many victims outed by the police had great difficulty in getting new jobs and housing. Some were beaten up, their homes and cars vandalised by homophobic mobs. Others turned to drink or endured mental breakdowns and suicide attempts. It is not an overstatement to say that lives were wrecked by the police.
Twenty-four of the UK's Chief Constables have turned down my request for an apology. As well as disputing the existence of this persecution, some have claimed that these abuses happened a long time ago and that an apology would be a pointless gesture.
The victims think otherwise. A formal apology would demonstrate moral leadership, humility and humanity. It would send a powerful message to those who endured oppression at the hands of the police, showing that their suffering has been heard, and that the police of today reject the abuses of the past.
Apologies are not symbolic gestures. They are acts of justice. They affirm change and that the police now stand alongside the communities they once harmed. For many LGBT+ people, hearing their Chief Constable acknowledge historic mistreatment would be profoundly healing.
The apologies issued so far by 21 forces have not undermined current officers but have strengthened community trust. They have helped to rebuild bridges with marginalised people, showing that policing today is informed by compassion, accountability and truth. This has boosted confidence in the police and encouraged more LGBT+ people to report hate crimes, domestic violence and sexual assaults.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Met Police, had no hesitation in saying sorry. He acknowledged that the Met had harboured 'systems and processes…which have led to bias and discrimination…over many decades' and apologised unreservedly to those 'we have let down.' Rowley showed true leadership and won huge respect among LGBT+ people.