Hate Crime Awareness Week: Lisa's Story

At Connected Voice Advocacy, we support people who are affected by hate crime. For Hate Crime Awareness Week, we want to share Lisa’s story (we’ve changed her name to protect her privacy). Her experience shows how serious and ongoing hate crime can be, and how important it is to get the right support.

What Lisa’s Been Through

We’ve worked with Lisa for over three years. She’s been targeted because of several things that make her who she is—her race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disabilities. She’s faced:

• Transphobia
• Racism
• Islamophobia
• Homophobia
• Disablism

These hate incidents have happened almost every month. They’ve come from neighbours, people on public transport, and strangers in shops and around town. Lisa has even had to move house more than once to try and stay safe.

Extra Challenges

Lisa has Autism, a mental health condition, a neurological condition, and a physical disability. Because of this, she needs adjustments when speaking to the police and other professionals.

How We Helped

We’ve supported Lisa in meetings with her local police team and her housing provider’s Safe Living team. Our goal was to make sure she was listened to, treated fairly, and given the support she needed.

We have worked with Lisa to highlight and challenge professionals to fulfil their duties under the Victims Code and the public duty under the Equality Act 2010.

The aim was to improve communications, investigations and justice - from the Victim's point of view.

Together, we’ve helped Lisa:

• Keep her CCTV for protection and evidence gathering, after attempts to remove this
• Use the audio feature on her CCTV to record verbal abuse
• Challenge professionals who used the wrong pronouns
• Stop an unfair warning (called a Community Protection Notice) after false complaints
• Report a data breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
• Being given an appropriate female Single Point of Contact within the Neighbourhood Police Team
• Completing a profile of information with the police and reasonable adjustments needed by Lisa, to improve her experience as a victim of Hate Crime.

Why This Matters

Hate crime doesn’t just hurt people; it can make them feel unsafe in their own communities. Lisa’s story shows how important it is to speak up, get support, and make sure services work for everyone.

If you or someone you know is affected by hate crime, we’re here to help. You don’t have to face it alone.