Hate Crime Advocacy

Funded by the Northumbria Office of Police and Crime Commissioner.

Susan Dungworth Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner

We support people who have been targeted because of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity who lives in the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner area (Northumberland, Tyne & Wear) who has:

has experienced hate crime
is at risk of hate crime
perceives themselves to be at risk of hate crime
is affected by hate crime

Abuse can look like verbal and physical attacks, threats, online, damage to property and harassment.

We welcome new cases and people can contact us themselves or someone else can on their behalf.

Thank you, you've been the first person who's listened and helped us to move forward with this. I now know who to report to and am more confident with the process.

We will listen. We will speak on your behalf or support you to speak. We will help you understand hate crime. We will support to keep you safe.We will support you to report crime if you want to. We will be with you through the criminal justice process, meeting police, giving statements and attending court. We will help you to complain or appeal if you want to. We will challenge unfair treatment.

We will share anonymous information to help improve services for victims. We will research the impact of hate crime.

We want to help all victims of hate crime to feel safe, well, heard, independent and included.

Click here for information about how to use our advocacy service.

Hate Crime research

We have had a Hate Crime Advocacy Service since 2017. We asked a research team to review our cases in 2019 and in 2022.

We reviewed 384 cases before and after the Covid 19 pandemic. They noticed patterns of hate incidents happening to people close to where they live, by people who are familiar and happen repeatedly.They called this Hate Relationships. They wrote about the long term physical and mental effects of hate relationships. They noticed that victims often felt misunderstood or not taken seriously by police or other professionals. The idea that people have more than one characteristic that makes them a victim is called "intersectionality". The research showed this was also sometimes misunderstood.

To find out more:

Read the first research report, Exploring ‘hate relationships’ through Connected Voice’s Hate Crime Advocacy Service
Read the second research report, Improving responses to Hate Relationships

Research recommendations

The research team from Durham and Northumbria University made recommendations. The research report stated that victims need specialist support like our Hate Crime Advocates. It recommended that we work in local authority areas to share data and talk about what we learnt. We do this.

Research report told us that victims get better support when we spot a pattern of Hate Relationships early. The research recommended that Connected Voice trains other agencies to understand Hate Relationships and the impact. It recommended we find simple ways to educate people on what hate crime is, and what hate relationship is. So we worked together on HATE ID app and a PDF.

We helped to make this free app. It helps support workers to understand if someone may be a victim of hate crime.

Hate ID

You can find out more about the Hate ID App here.

You can access the PDF here.

Want to know more about how we help people? Read our case studies and watch our films.

👉Read our latest blog on Hate Crime Advocacy

I am so honoured to have been looked out for by you... Your unconditional help will be staying with me for as long as I am recovering from this ordeal.

I could open my heart and share my feelings because I knew there was help, and they would listen and not just shrug their shoulders. Great service

Hate Crime Films - watch now

The barriers to reporting Hate Crime have been captured in a series of short films as part of Sunderland University's Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries' annual Police Projects. We're pleased to be able to present all five films below, including the winner, 'Silent Treatment'. This work was funded by the Northumbria Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and created in collaboration between Sunderland University, NOPCC, Northumbria Police and Connected Voice Advocacy. Please be aware that the films depict scenarios of unacceptable behaviour to dramatise the impact of Hate Crime and the barriers people face - viewer discretion is advised.

Watch 'Silent Treatment' below: