Cornwall gay: Homophobic police BLACKMAIL Incident?

Read this. Make up your own mind.

Cornwall police response to a recent homophobic incidents.
Names retracted to protect individuals.

Working from statement given to Cornwall police.

On Tuesday 11th Sept. 2007. A gay man was called upon unexpectedly at his home in Cornwall by a former employee of his. The gay man went outside his home accompanied by another adult resident of the same address.

The former employee appeared slightly awkward or agitated and said, “I want your van”.
The gay man initially thought his former employee meant he wanted to buy his van.
The gay man no longer had his former business.
The gay man queried, “You want to buy my van?”
The former employee said, “No, I want you to give it to me.”
The gay man did not understand and said so.
The former employee said, “I want you to give me your van or I go to the police and make a complaint against you”
The former employee then said in front of both the gay man and another adult resident of the house. “Either you give me your van or I go to the police and tell them you showed me child porn on your computer when I worked for you”
The gay man responded, “The police have already had my computer and forensically examined it and there were NO illegal images on it”

• (This is a statement of FACT regarding police forensic examination of the gay man’s computer in 2004 following malign allegations made against the gay man. Corroborated in an IPCC police complaint report 2006. Also admitted by police in Civil Crown Court Sept 2006)

The gay man said, “It’s in the IPCC report there were NO illegal images on my computer”.
The former employee appeared frustrated and became angry. He said he would retract an earlier statement he had given to IPCC investigators. The former employee said he would make a complaint against the gay man to the IPCC if the gay man did not give him his van.
The gay man pointed out to the former employee, the IPCC investigate police misconduct.
The former employee became increasingly angry and said, “Who are they going to believe, me or you, I don’t have a criminal record and I have nothing to lose”
The gay man was shocked and said, “This is blackmail, why are you doing this?”
The former employee replied, “You ruined my life, you promised me a job with your company when I qualified”.

• The former employee had gained qualifications whilst working for the gay man’s business several years previously. However, the former employee had not applied for a position with the gay man’s business once he had qualified and his period of training ceased. The former employee in fact requested a work reference to support an application for him to work elsewhere, which the gay employer had happily provided him with a reference.

Another adult resident of the property was within two metres and witness to this clear and blatant attempted blackmail. Yet another resident of the property was aware from inside the house that there was an argument going on outside.

The gay man said to his former employee, “I don’t even have the business anymore!
The former employee said, “Good, I want you to give me your van or I go to the police”
The gay former employer said, “I’m walking away from this”.

The gay man went inside his home as further abuse shouted by the former employee. A friend arrived of one of the other adult residents in the house. The former employee then left, driving away at speed.

The gay former employer shaken, deeply disturbed, and shocked by this attempted blackmail. As was the adult witness, who is also a gay man. The gay former employer then rang Middlemoor Police Headquarters and reported the incident.

A police officer later contacted the gay man by phone that evening of 11th Sept 2007. The police officer said, “What did you expect us (police) to do about it?”

The gay victim said as far as he was aware blackmail was still a criminal offence. He requested his local community police officer to come out and take statements from him and the witness. This was because the gay victim had previous unfortunate negative experiences of many Cornwall police officers towards him as a gay man and towards his homosexuality. The requested police officer was one of the few police officers the gay man had encountered who he felt had acted appropriately towards him as a gay man.

“Although I was the victim, when reporting it to the police I felt no empathy from the police” said the gay victim.

Police made an appointment for a statement to be taken from the gay victim. The requested officer did not attend to take statement. The gay victim felt sufficiently unconfident in Cornwall police that he sensibly arranged (we would recommend ANY gay person, for whatever reason does this when dealing with Cornwall police) for a witness to be present. The witness happened to be a female member of the Cornwall LGBT Gay PRIDE Steering group.

A statement taken from the gay former employer, but police declined to take a statement from the other male adult witness to the actual incident, also a gay man.

The former employee arrested and interviewed under caution.
Police later informed the gay victim there was insufficient evidence to prosecute for the attempted blackmail.

The other gay man, witness to the incident who police declined to interview and who is another member of the Cornwall LGBT Gay PRIDE steering group said, “This has shaken me up. I feel increasingly unsafe in Cornwall as a gay man. This is mainly due to Cornwall police reactions towards gay persons. This has done nothing to improve my confidence in Cornwall police attitudes towards gay people and their responses to homophobic incidents”.

The statement from the gay victim forwarded by the gay victim to a police LGBT officer. LGBT homophobic incidents in Cornwall are known to be not always conveyed to equality & diversity officers by other police officers.

• Another Cornwall homophobic incident August 07: A gay man arrested and held by Cornwall police for over 16 hours before released without charge is still waiting to hear from Cornwall police a week after the person who made spurious false allegations against him said to have withdrawn their false allegation.
• The person who made the allegation has been texting and telling numerous people they have withdrawn their allegation, including to the person against whom they made allegation. The accuser has been telling numerous people that they felt pressured and forced into making a false allegation against the gay man by their former partner. Friends of the gay man falsely accused see this police delay as just further evidence of harassment and intimidation of gay people in Cornwall by the police.

• Yet another Cornwall homophobic incident August 07: A gay man who received threatening messages via an internet website and reported them to Cornwall police is still awaiting an outcome. The gay man threatened by a known person in writing to “kick the living shit out of him”, put him in hospital, break his neck, break his legs, and break his jaw. The Cornish police seem very loath to act to the defence of gay persons victims of homophobic crime in Cornwall.


A member of the 2007 Cornwall LGBT PRIDE steering group said, “In Cornwall, gay people are extremely vulnerable to abuse, in particular institutional abuse, in particular it is felt from this Cornish police force. Police still give the impression that if a gay person is a victim of crime it is somehow the gay persons fault because they are gay. Cornwall police are very quick to react if a gay person is accused of any crime, but are seemingly far less keen to proceed or prosecute when it is the victim who is gay. There are at least TWENTY TWO very good reasons why the entire Cornwall PRIDE steering group voted to exclude Cornwall police from the 2007 Gay PRIDE beach day in Cornwall August this year.”

Cornwall Police...Again!

General Media Release 6th Sept 07

Cornwall Gay PRIDE NOT safe from Cornish HOMOPHOBIC police!

Some members of the successful 2007 Cornwall Gay PRIDE Beach Picnic held this August Bank Holiday have reiterated they do not feel safe from continued homophobic motivated intimidation and harassment from Devon & Cornwall Constabulary.

The Cornwall PRIDE steering group voted on three separate occasions NOT to involve Devon & Cornwall Constabulary prior to this years highly successful 2007 gay PRIDE Beach Day. Although all agreed to keep police informed of PRIDE day developments. This vote was due to continuing gay concerns regarding negative experiences in the local Cornwall gay community of repetitive abusive policing practises towards gay persons in Cornwall.

The vote to exclude Cornwall police made unanimous on every single occasion by the entire steering group of the 2007 Cornwall PRIDE Beach day, almost twenty persons on the steering panel, consisting of men, women, and Cornish gay youth.

Then just days before the Cornwall PRIDE day, one of the most publicly visible local critics of the Cornwall police abysmal record on police violations of the gay community. A gay man who has been an HIV/AIDS and gay equality campaigner for two decades was arrested, interrogated, held overnight for over 16 hours in police custody prior to release without charge.

The gay man arrested, ironically won last year twenty-two recommendation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission against Devon & Cornwall Constabulary as a result of a catalogue of prior complaints of abusive conduct by Cornwall Police officers.

There is growing anger amongst informed aware people in the Cornwall gay community of clear determination, some might say vendetta, within Cornwall Constabulary to victimise, target, harass, and violate gay persons in Cornwall. It is felt Police target very vulnerable gay persons or those who have courage to speak out about continuing problems of institutional homophobia and discriminatory practises still highly prevalent within Cornish Institutional Authorities, in particular within this prejudicial Cornwall Police force.

A spokesperson from the Cornwall PRIDE group, fearing police reprisal wishes to remain nameless said. “We have a Cornwall police force which repeatedly wishes to blind-eye abuses and violations of gay people’s lives carried out by homophobic police officers”.

There is no faith or trust expressed in Cornwall police from sectors of the Cornish gay community.

• “I am personally aware as a witness to a DC police officer who committed perjury in a Civil Crown Court against a gay person.
• The same police officer also said ‘anal sex was always an act of sexual violence’ in a court of law against a gay person, which was accepted by the court.(The same judge condemned gay equality and HIV/AIDS awareness campaigning as ‘Evangelical Proselytising’, the same judge also implied age of equal consent at 16 came into effect in 2004…when in fact it was 2001).
• A local community police officer who told a gay victim of a brutal serious violent assault in Helston, Cornwall, to ‘shut up, be quiet, you don’t want to say that’, when the victim informed the police officer he thought it was a homophobic assault.
• The same police officer then threatened to charge with affray, a gay victim (hospitalised) after violent assault, if complaint of assault made by either two LGBT victims.
• I know a police Sergeant who obstructed information to a gay person how to make a formal complaint against police.
• Another police Sergeant, now an Inspector, tried to obstruct disclosure by a gay person of defence statements to police prosecution.
• Another police officer lied about a signature in a pocket book to try to cover up police misconduct against a gay person.
• Yet another police officer who lied and failed to deliver ALL legally entitled court paperwork to a gay victim of police homophobia.
• A police Inspector who stated in a letter spreading rumours a gay person had HIV/AIDS (when they did not have HIV/AIDS) was not harassment.
• The same Inspector stated in a letter screaming of homophobic abuse in the streets was not harassment of a gay person.
• A Detective Constable who participated in attempted blackmail of a homeless vagrant 15yr old gay youth living rough on the streets of Helston, this recorded on tape.
• Then there were two police officers carried out a partial strip search on a gay youth in a public place and failed to follow home office guidelines on “stop and search”. The youth a witness in another case AGAINST police officers for misconduct. The same police rude to an elderly pensioner witness in defence of the gay youth. The youth’s complaints ignored by police of misconduct.
• A Detective Constable who tried to mislead a court of law as to ownership of a property and who acted upon entirely homophobic allegations against a gay person.
• A Detective Constable who threatened a seized computer (later returned) would be wiped of information. The same police officer failed to return seized property to a gay person within an acceptable time line resulting in destruction of two gay owned businesses. The same police officer refused a gay person access to an LGBT diversity officer.
• A Detective Constable failed to finalise a case, leaving a gay victim of homophobic abuse on the police computer as a suspect.
• Custody officers failed to enable a gay person held in custody any food for in excess of 7 hours and tried to bully a gay person when their property went missing whilst detained by the police.
• A police Inspector lied about identity of two police officers who made un-logged visit to a gay person’s home. This combination of police abuses and violations subsequently drove a gay person to attempt suicide.

Numerous Cornwall police officers who when informed of criminal conduct by their colleagues have repeatedly failed to act upon homophobic conduct of other Cornwall police officers.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission half-heartedly investigated some (not all) and upheld some of a catalogue of complaints against Cornwall police resulting in twenty-two recommendations against the Cornish police in 2006, promptly ignored by Cornwall Constabulary. The abuse of a gay youth by Cornwall police never investigated.

This is just my own personal experience and observation. It is why I do not believe there is any honesty, integrity, impartiality or transparency of conduct operative in what I personally know is a highly corrupt and homophobic Cornwall police force still towards gay persons” said Malcolm Lidbury

Cornwall gay equality campaigners are dispelling the myth that Cornwall police take the ‘True Vision’ police policy on tackling hate crime against gay persons seriously. In reality, equality, & diversity platitudes spouted by a diversity officer is nothing but lip service papering over a homophobic Cornwall police force.

It is strongly felt by some gay persons the most likely person still to violate and abuse a gay person in Cornwall…will be carrying a police warrant card.

This release sent to you by:-

Malcolm Lidbury
Tel:- 07812484780
http://www.pinkpasty.blogspot.com