Manchester Police Make First Emo Hate Crime Arrest

Manchester police have made their first emo assault arrest this week, following the news that attacks on goths, punks, metalheads, and emos would be classed as hate crimes.

Attacks against cliques of music fans and ‘alternative subcultures’ - such as those who involve themselves with the metal, emo, punk, or goth scene - were recently reclassified as hate crimes by police in Manchester, meaning they fall into the same category as attacks based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, and disabilities.

This new move - which went ahead last week - has already resulted in it’s first case, after a 44 year-old man and a 14 year-old boy were arrested in Ashton-under-Lyne for the assault of a 16 year-old ‘emo’. The teenager reported the assault to the police as a hate crime, and the pair of assailants are now on bail until May 7th.

Chief Constable Garry Shewan told The Guardian: “Officers will be reviewing CCTV and speaking to witnesses in order to investigate this attack thoroughly, as we do with all crimes. It is unfortunate that this incident happened, but the fact we were able to identify this as a hate crime is very positive.

“Just last Thursday we announced that we will now record alternative subculture as a hate motivation. We hope this encourages victims to continue to come forward so we can take positive action against offenders.”

The decision to class these kind of attacks as hate crime comes following the highly-publicised murder of Sophie Lancaster in 2007 - She was savagely beaten to death whilst with her boyfriend Robert Maltby, simply because her attackers didn’t like her goth sense of style.

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