Police slammed for plan to give LGBT+ folk ‘confidence’ by putting rainbows on cars
Emma Powys Maurice August 23, 2021
UK police are facing heavy criticism for a new fleet of rainbow-coloured squad cars they claim will boost “confidence” among the LGBT+ community.
The “hate crime cars” will be introduced in forces across the country in a bid to encourage more victims of anti-LGBT+ crimes to come forward to police.
Currently as many as 80 per cent of LGBT+ people don’t report hate crimes to the authorities, according to Stonewall, but police believe their colourful cars will change that.
“They get all the police insignia put on them as normal, but there will be normally something added on that is to do with the rainbow side of things,” said Julie Cooke, deputy chief constable of Cheshire Police.
Explaining the initiative on social media, she said that the “cost is quite minimal”, but is assured that the impact is “huge”.
“Actually the cost is quite minimal but the confidence that it can bring by just having that rainbow on there… and people say to me the impact of seeing the rainbow is so huge,” she said . . .