1995 - DEVON & CORNWALL
POLICE HOMOPHOBIA
March 1995 – on going. Devon & Cornwall police ran an active campaign targeting gay/bisexual men in Cornwall. Devon & Cornwall police ran an agent provocateur sting against gay/bi men in Cornwall. Some victims contacted Lidbury who as editor ran an article in the ICT LGBT newsletter. The Devon & Cornwall police were breaching Home Office guidelines issued some years previously on stopping of use of deliberate police entrapment using ‘pretty-boy’ police officers in areas frequented by ‘some’ gay/bi men.
Mch 95: The LGBT newspaper Pink Paper ran it as a front page article.
Matthew Taylor Mp also took up the issue of police targeting gay/bi men. At the time local business traders in some of Cornwall’s High Streets were being told by police there was insufficient police manpower available to deal with a spate of high street vandalism & criminal damage to business properties in Cornwall.
Lidbury responded through the local press to the police homophobic hate campaign of targeting police resources at gay men.
Mch 95: Packet Newspapers Letters 'Hardened Criminals'
Mch 95 Pink Paper 'Pervert Patrols'
Apr 95: ICT front page RE; Devon & Cornwall police anti-gay campaign
May 1995: Gay Times Magazine named Lidbury in the 200th celebratory edition as one of the top 200 gay people in Britain for his contribution to gay community, equality & HIV/AIDS campaigning and awareness in Cornwall.
One memorable fan subscriber to the ICT newsletter a gay man called ‘Charles’ & his life partner David. Charles was in his 80’s and had contributed written contribution testimony to the 1957 Wolfendon report on decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK.
Charles said to Lidbury:
“Remember, we as gay people are only ever one government away from the gas chambers”
This comment has never left Lidbury who has encountered gross homophobic protected prejudice from Devon & Cornwall police & from other authorities, including LGBT groups in Cornwall. The words of 80yr old Charles still ring true today. As without vigilance hard won advances in LGBT equality can be lost or given away by those some now running 'some' LGBT organisations who sellout hard won rights & freedoms for 30 pieces of funding.
In 1933 Berlin Germany was the most liberal city in Europe in accepting gay people. By the end of WWII over 10,000+ LGBT person had been sent to Nazi concentration camps.
Lest we forget. Sprocket Trust supported video viewed
(253,000 views up to Mch 2015)
NB: 2004: Police Homophobia & ignoring of Hate Crimes against gay persons in Cornwall became a bitter issue from 2004. Lidbury made a formal complaint against a police officer & became the police target of a voracious homophobically motivated police hate campaign & vendetta.....still on going.
