Barking And Dagenham Council Spends Over £87,000 On LGBT Support
The funds go towards projects that support the LGBT community in Barking and Dagenham.
Barking and Dagenham council spent £87,221 on projects that support LGBT people and their families in 2019/20.
This comes more than five years after the rapes and murders of four young men by Stephen Port shook the community.
Port, also known as the Grindr Killer, is serving a life sentence for luring men by posting on online gay social networks then adding lethal doses of date rape drugs to their drinks before raping them in his flat in Barking.
However, it is believed there are at least 11 victims of Port’s predatory behaviour.
Following these horrific deaths, the council began to carry out an annual needs assessment to encourage members of the LGBT community to rebuild their trust in local authorities.
Funding for support of the LGBT community in Dagenham and Barking has stayed relatively consistent since 2014/15, at around £80,000 a year. The exception is 2018/19, where that figure dropped to slightly over £32,000.
The findings were sourced by media literacy charity The Student View in a Freedom of Information request submitted to Barking and Dagenham Borough Council.