There has been a big increase in the number of hate crimes against people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.

New research from the UK's leading charity for LGBT equality shows abuse and attacks have rocketed by 78% in the last five years.

The report from Stonewall found that 21% of LGBT people faced hate crime about their sexual orientation and/or gender in the last year. Four in 10 transgender people experienced hate crime in relation to their gender in the last year.

However, 81% of those people didn't report such incidents to police.

Reg Kheraj, 28, was attacked after a night out in London's Soho with friends.


He said: "I was pinned up against the wall and choked on my throat by two guys.

"One of them put his hand up to me like he was going to punch me in the face.

"The other one smashed a burger up against my face and rubbed it all down my clothes, all down the front of me; all the while throwing pretty horrific homophobic and abusive insults at me."

Mr Kheraj says he was traumatised by the attack, which is the third time he's been targeted in the last year.

Charity Stonewall say while laws and attitudes have changed in recent decades, there's a long way to go.

Dominic Arnall, head of projects and programmes, said: "We've got a lot further to go as this research demonstrates.

"I think whereas for some LGBT people there's been tremendous progression - we've seen in 2014 equal marriage we've seen some wonderful strides forward, unfortunately there's still an awfully long way to go."

The charity want more people from LGBT communities to report discrimination and hate crimes to police.

They have launched a new campaign to make the stand against LGBT hate crime.