Free Black Noise by Pekka Hiltunen Page B

received the most publicity was Ian Baynham in 2009. It happened in the centre of London, near the place where David Wynn’s body had been found now. Baynham’s killing attracted the most attention because the main perpetrator was such a surprise: a nineteen-year-old girl, Ruby Thomas. Thomas, a drinker with violent tendencies, had been flirting with men on the street. Encountering Baynham, a sixty-year old out with his male friend, the girl started a row. Baynham became indignant when Thomas began using homophobic slurs. Shouting and arm waving ensued, and the girl attacked Baynham. Thomas’s former boyfriend, who was also on the scene, struck Baynham to the ground, at which point the girl and her friends began assaulting him. Sneering all the while, she continued beating him even though he was already lying on the ground unconscious, with blood dripping from his head. Later the group joked about the incident on Facebook.
    Thomas, who grew up in a violent family, received a sentence of seven years, which included an extra year for committing a hate crime. The boyfriend who knocked Baynham to the ground received six years. Many criticised the light sentences, especially since everyone knew they would only serve part of them.
    Lia remembered reading about the case in the news. Then, it had felt like an isolated act. Listening to Bayhurst-Davies talk was starting to give her a more coherent picture.
    ‘People always want to explain away hate crimes,’ she said. ‘It’s easy to say that Ruby Thomas was drunk and came from a horrible family so that’s what really matters. Or that everyone in Stuart Walker’s home town liked him and that no one wished any harm on him. But in all of these cases the sexual orientation of the victim was a key factor. The circumstances surrounding a crime blur people’s vision, but they don’t reduce the destructive effects of homophobia. If we always find some other explanation, it’s never going to go away.’
    Bayhurst-Davies praised the London police for their actions in recent years. Each police division had at least one officer assigned specifically to LGBTI issues. But they were also seeing a backlash: as these groups’ rights received more attention, the opposition to them only hardened.
    ‘And the fanatics are getting better and better at it,’ Bayhurst-Davies said. ‘They usually know not to reveal their attitudes publicly. A local councillor can advance his ideology by soliciting funding for far-right Christian groups. The police can fail to list crimes as homophobic.’
    Investigating homophobia was usually quite complicated. Sometimes the police justified not handling cases as hate crimes as an attempt to protect the victims. There were times when covering things up did protect them, Bayhurst-Davies said, but at the same time it prevented the overall problem from being addressed.
    They had been talking for nearly an hour now, and Lia could see that the woman wanted to move on to other work.
    ‘That’s how it is,’ Bayhurst-Davies said. ‘Whenever someone attacks gay people, we get flooded with work.’
    Usually the victims didn’t have lawyers, and Gallant would try to find them one. They helped arrange medical care and found the victims and their families safe places to stay. Often the victims needed shelter just so they could testify against their attackers. Sometimes the organisation had to put pressure on the police, and representatives were constantly waging a public opinion battle in the media.
    ‘People only want to see happy gay and lesbian people. After all, think how much they’ve already given us by legalising homosexuality and making gay marriage possible in some countries. And TV shows are full of cute, cuddly gays, so what do we have to complain about any more? But we aren’t just a harmless little minority. Every day I meet people whose lives are being made intolerable by homophobia.’
    Did Bayhurst-Davies believe homophobia was behind the video