A prominent human rights activist has recently criticised Greater Manchester Police for ‘refusing’ to apologise for past instances of homophobia - but what exactly does it all mean?

This week, Peter Tatchell said he has been urging GMP to apologise for what he calls past ‘homophobic witch-hunts’ for two years now in letters sent to current chief constable Stephen Watson.

Tatchell said that the historical action of Manchester's police force against the LGBTQ community, stemming decades, included police raids on gay-led venues and comments made by former chief constable Sir James Anderton, who led the force between 1975 and 1991, who once said - in amidst the AIDS crisis - that homosexuals were ‘swirling in a human cesspit of their own making’.

In a letter to Tatchell in April, Mr Watson said that whilst he was ‘of course sorry’ that police bodies prior to the GMP’s foundation in 1974 ‘didn't always perform to the standards deserved by those whom we serve’, it would ‘nevertheless be quite unjust for me as the current Chief Constable to cast some sort of sweeping assertion as to the general conduct of the force over a prolonged period of time’.

Mr Watson added that ‘virtually no serving officer in the entire force can speak to the period with any personal knowledge’. He also said that ‘such an apology could well be seen, even by the intended recipients, as both superficial and merely performative’, and would make 'little or no difference'. But, on that last point in particular, I have to disagree.

Whilst any police force is far from perfect, I’m sure it is........

© Manchester Evening News