A MAJOR new campaign has been launched aimed at winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the public in the fight against hate crime.

The campaign, launched by the Safer Birmingham crimefighting Partnership, aims to raise awareness about religious and homophobic crime and encourage victims not to “put up” with it.

Posters are going up across the city featuring the strapline: “Birmingham is proud of its diversity – we’d like to keep it that way.”

Coun Ayoub Khan, Cabinet Member for Local Services and Community Safety said: “Hate crime can have an enormous impact on people’s lives – physically and emotionally.

“It can affect a victim’s health and well-being, it can damage their health and it can affect their outlook on life. Most types of crime are reducing in Birmingham but with hate crime, we don’t know the real picture.”

Hate crime is considered abuse or discrimination based on a person’s gender, age, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability.

The Safer Birmingham Partnership hope the campaign will make people who are guilty of discriminating and abusing others, think twice about their actions and also encourage those that have suffered from hate-filled abuse, to come forward and report it.

The partnership, made up of police, council, probation and health workers, said they were actively targeting a number of individuals for a range of hate crime offences.

Earlier this month, council tenant Richard Leonard who harassed neighbours, and was particularly aggressive towards a gay man, was told he would be banned from his house in a landmark ruling.

Birmingham County Court granted the city council a possession order for the 57-year-old’s Erdington home as part of a two-year Anti-Social Behaviour Injunction from the new year.

Leonard’s victim, who did not want to be named, said: “My advice to anyone suffering from homophobic bullying is that you don’t have to put up with it and you shouldn’t.”

Jackie Russell, Director of Safer Birmingham Partnership, said: “We want to encourage residents to report hate crime and trust that we will do something about it.”