BBC News Online: UK: Northern Ireland

Focus on attacks on gay community

It follows reports of a rising number of attacks on homosexuals, particularly in the streets surrounding gay venues in Belfast.

A senior officer met representatives of the gay community at a meeting in the city on Monday night to explain how the force intended to tackle the problem.

Chief Inspector Gary White from the Community Affairs Branch said: "We have produced a public information leaflet in relation to the homophobic incident monitoring system.

"And that is there to try and allay those fears, basically to say we are not interested in your lifestyle.

New approach welcomed

"We are interested, however, in the fact that you have been the victim of crime.

"What we are interested in is, who did it and doing something about that."

Gay Pride organiser David McCartney welcomed the new approach from the RUC, with homophobic attacks being treated in the same way as racially-motivated incidents.

However, he said some of the gay community were still wary about reporting incidents to the police.

And he said more education may be needed within police ranks for the scheme to succeed.