Galop is the UK’s LGBT+ anti-abuse charity. We work with and for LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse and violence.

Galop works directly with thousands of LGBT+ people who have experienced abuse and violence every year. We specialise in supporting victims and survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence, hate crime, honour-based abuse, forced marriage, so-called conversion therapies, and other forms of interpersonal abuse. We are a service run by LGBT+ people, for LGBT+ people, and the needs of our community are at the centre of what we do.

We run four national support helplines for LGBT+ victims and survivors of: domestic abuse; hate crime; rape and sexual abuse; and so-called “conversion therapy”. We provide longer-term support to thousands of LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse through our advocacy services. We are person-centred, empowerment-based, and trauma-informed – meaning our focus is always on helping our clients decide what is best for them, and then supporting them through their journey.

We use what we learn through working on the frontlines with clients to work on national and local policy change, to improve outcomes for LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse and violence. We build evidence through key pieces of research around LGBT+ people’s experiences of abuse and violence. We push for legislative change, improved statutory guidance for victims, and better understanding of the needs of LGBT+ people around the country…

Galop exists to provide a safe space for LGBT+ victims of abuse to receive support, advice, and practical help, run by LGBT+ people for LGBT+ people. Our values apply to all the work we do at Galop.

We are trauma-informed

​Our service understands what trauma is and how our brains and bodies react when faced with violence and abuse and its aftermath. We understand the impact of trauma on people’s lives and we validate survivors’ resistance and resilience in getting through in the best way they can. 

We work with survivors to find the right holistic and therapeutic services for them. We share information about trauma and provide in-depth listening and practical grounding to support survivors.

We are empowerment-based

Our service is empowerment-based. This means our work aims to enable LGBT+ people to have choice and control over their lives. This is incredibly important for survivors when choice and control have been taken away from them. 

Empowerment is about seeing each person as a whole human being. It is about recognising that there are many aspects to someone’s identity and life experience, including sexual or romantic orientation and gender identity, and also your ethnicity, background, age etc.  Violence and abuse can have an impact on all aspects of someone’s identity.

We are person-centred

Our service is centred on the needs of the people we work with and is founded on the values of safety, respect, non-judgment, professionalism, and anti-discriminatory practice:

• Safety is fundamental to our service. We hold survivors who may be experiencing distress or difficult times. We offer a warm individual service within clear boundaries. 
• We believe that the working relationships we create with survivors are fundamental to the healing process. 
• We respect and understand the many ways that LGBT+ people choose to live and express themselves. 
• Our staff are trained, supported and supervised effectively. This includes ​​robust practices around case management, record keeping and safeguarding. We work to the highest standards of conduct about our behaviour and practice at all times​. 
• LGBT+ people have intersecting identities and experiences of marginalisation and discrimination, for example related to race and ethnicity, faith, disability, age, and class.  We understand how the experiences of poverty, asylum-seeking, mental ill-health and other inequalities affect the risk and experience of violence and abuse. 

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Early Days: 1982 – 1984

​​​In June 1982 the Gay London Police Monitoring Group was created, in part to expose the systematic harassment of the gay and lesbian communities by the police, but also to educate those communities about their rights. At first, it was a voluntary grouping of lawyers and interested parties providing a service to gay men who suffered from arbitrary and discriminatory policing. Funding from the Greater London Council allowed employment of two core workers.

Establishing A Voice: 1985 – 1987

Operating under the umbrella of Galop, the Lesbians and Policing Project (LESPOP) developed to research and educate the lesbian community about policing issues in London. Galop’s work dealt with new police powers of arrest, in particular around public lesbian and gay demonstrations, raids on gay pubs and bookshops and bans on lesbian and gay employment by local authorities.

A Higher Profile: 1988 – 1991

As violent and organised homophobic attacks became more alarming, Galop called for the logging of anti-gay crimes as a separate category by the police. Alongside Section 28 becoming law, Galop’s statistics showed a tripling of calls from men arrested while cruising. Massive police resources were being dedicated to the control of these essentially ‘victimless’ crimes, despite the escalation of homophobic hate crimes with genuine victims.

Making Changes: 1992 – 1994

Following several years of increased dialogue between the police and the gay community, arrests for gross indecency began to fall. Galop’s role became much more pivotal in engagement with policy-making; the changes that were produced were largely a result of our lobbying and liaison. As Galop’s work had started to move away from our original aims, a process of consultation began through which the lesbian and gay communities were given the opportunity to shape our future direction. This resulted in Galop becoming a company limited by guarantee. Public forums defined important recommendations for future work around the issues of educating and informing the community as well as monitoring police practice and malpractice.

Reaching Out: 1995 – 2002

Galop began to engage with a more diverse community, officially including bisexual people in its remit for the first time. Our youth work produced a pioneering needs assessment which ultimately resulted in a full youth project to raise the profile of LGB youth issues and an event that was attended by over 100 organisations. Following the bombing of the Admiral Duncan in 1999, Galop was a key agency in helping to establish the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Advisory Group (LGBT AG) which worked alongside the police. Another pioneering Galop publication was the first in the UK to focus on black and ethnic minority (BME) LGB people’s experiences of hate crime, policing and community safety. This then informed specific work carried out with the LGB BME communities

A New Phase: 2002 – 2006

Galop worked with the police to develop ‘Assisted Reporting’, a way for hate crimes to be reported to the police through us. Crimes as severe as kidnapping and sexual assault were reported this way, indicating a continuing mistrust of the police by the LGBT communities. With a number of high-profile homophobic murders Galop played a crucial role in providing a link between the LGBT communities and the police with vital information gathered from reports to our helpline assisting successful arrests and convictions. An online reporting facility was developed and Galop began to work in partnership with other agencies and the government to undertake research and deliver high-profile education projects. We continued to be instrumental in shaping policy at the highest levels, including the future of police training, and emphasised our remit of inclusion by officially offering all services to transgender people. ​

Adding New Support: 2007 – 2014

Galop’s services saw successful growth in the areas of joint or partnership working, continuing to improve LGBT community involvement, advising and improving communications between local authorities, statutory bodies and other organisations in order to make policing more responsive, in particular advising the Metropolitan Police Service jointly with the LGBT Advisory Group. Our domestic abuse work was founded during this time, with the founding of the London Domestic Abuse Partnership, led by Galop. The DAP provides LGBT+ victims and survivors of domestic abuse with a clear pathway into specialist support services. Galop also launched a ground-breaking project providing the only specialist LGBT sexual abuse support in the country during this time, and published a landmark report increasing understanding of the level of unreported LGBT hate crime as well as an assessment of services available to victims of these crimes.​

Serving Our Community: 2015 – present

Throughout its history, Galop’s goal has always been to make life safe, just, and fair for our community. Over recent years, we have grown our frontline services substantially – providing advocacy and casework to victims and survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence, hate crime, and other forms of abuse and violence. Many of these services had started with just one caseworker, and have since grown to have far more capacity to help LGBT+ people experiencing abuse and violence inside and outside London. Alongside the growth of our services, we also grew our ability to influence policy and provide an evidence base for change on behalf of our community via our research projects.

In 2016, we added the National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline to our services, following the collapse of an LGBT+ domestic abuse charity called Broken Rainbow. In 2017, we started a dedicated advocacy service for LGBT+ people aged 13-25, working across all forms of abuse. In 2019, we opened our first advocacy service for LGBT+ victims of domestic abuse across the UK, helping to plug some of the gaps in services identified by our ground-breaking report Recognise and Respond. In 2020, we opened the first LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Forum, for people across the UK to seek peer support. In 2021, we launched two national helplines: the LGBT+ Hate Crime Helpline and the National Conversion Therapy Helpline. In 2023, we launched the UK’s first dedicated LGBT+ Rape and Sexual Abuse Helpline.

Executive Team

Ben Kernighan (he/him), Interim CEO

Ben has over 30 years’ experience working in the charity sector and was formerly CEO at Leap Confronting Conflict. He began his career at Terrence Higgins Trusts, and since then, Ben has helped hundreds of charities to thrive. His previous roles included Group Chief Executive of the National Union of Students and Deputy Chief Executive at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. He has extensive non-executive experience and is currently Vice-Chair of The Henry Smith Charity, a large charitable foundation.
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Board of Trustees

Lenna Cumberbatch (all pronouns welcome) – Co-chair

Committed to community, Lenna volunteers for organisations such as LGBTQ+ anti-bullying charity, Diversity Role Models, King’s Health Partners Haematology, and small business advisors, Be the Business. Lenna also spent several years volunteering for Galop in the early 2000s.

Lenna’s current work focuses on inclusion taking a strategic change approach.  She has been active in diversity and inclusion in operational and strategic roles for over 25 years.  Currently, these roles are cross-sectoral and cross-regional such as a London recruitment firm, a Midlands housing association, the European Commission’s research executive agency, and Ofcom’s Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People.

A member of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Lenna is a Toastmaster’s Competent Communicator and Competent Leader.  Her speaking engagements have included a keynote at the Portuguese Annual Science Communication Congress, BBC Scotland’s Black History month programme, and the Women of the World (WOW) festivals.  She has a BA in English and Women’s and Gender studies.

Kingsley Macey (he/him) – Co-chair

Kingsley is an accomplished Human Resources and People Leader, with extensive experience in Chief People Officer roles. He works closely with CEOs, commercial leadership teams, and diverse employee populations both in the UK and internationally driving People, Diversity and Commercial strategies.
A staunch advocate for equal rights and conscious inclusion, Kingsley is dedicated to fostering safe and progressive work environments. He is committed to extending his positive impact to society and, in particular, within the LGBTQ+ community.

Sandeep Jha (he/him) | Chair of the HR Sub Committee

Sandeep’s career began working for Vodafone in India as a HR Management Trainee. He has worked on different specialist HR roles before taking on HR Business Partnering and working across India, South Africa, Portugal and the UK leading an international team. He is currently the HR Director for Group Functions at BMI Group working with the team to Build New Horizons.

Sandeep has experience of working through significant business and culture transformation. He is passionate about driving change and believes in creating an environment where people can thrive to achieve their potential.

Simon Hall  (he/him) | Treasurer

Simon has always been a community activist, and has been actively involved in a number of voluntary organisations and societies at board level for forty years. He was involved in the community response to the HIV pandemic, including being one of the founding directors of GMFA.

From 2018-2023, Simon was a trustee of the equality and diversity charity, METRO, and was the treasurer for four years. He is also an experienced trustee of a multi-academy school’s trust.

Simon comes to Galop with a wealth of experience in the statutory sector, having been in the NHS for 35 years until 2023.  During his leadership of Tower Hamlets CCG, it achieved an Outstanding rating from NHS England twice, was nominated for 2017 Health Service Journal CCG of the Year, and achieved high rankings for patient and public involvement and staff satisfaction.  Simon led the testing and vaccination programmes for all of North East London during the Covid-19 pandemic, and currently is the interim Chief Executive of Compass Wellbeing.

Simon is passionate about the work that Galop does, with which he feels a personal connection as a gay man and a parent.  He is also a passionate internationalist, and loves to travel as often as he can.

Ruth Arnold (she/they) | Trustee

Ruth is a counsellor specialising in working with trauma. She has a range of experience in frontline services including sexual violence, hate crime, advocacy services and education. She lives in Bristol and is the Clinical Manager at Kinergy, a charity providing therapeutic services for survivors of sexual violence and/or abuse. She is passionate about system change and partnership working to improve services and accessibility for clients along with support and wellbeing of staff.

Bennjoseph Vaughan (he/him) | Trustee

Bennjoseph works within the social care sector in frontline and leadership positions, empowering children and young people, families and adults through adversity and vulnerability, building on strengths. Challenging the status quo and striving for systems change for all survivors is a passion for him. Bennjoseph has both personal and professional experience in social care that continue to motivate him to advocate for and to walk alongside survivors and the LGBTQIA+ community, with equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging being of the upmost importance. Raising his daughter as a rainbow parent, Bennjoseph hopes to lead by example in creating psychologically safe spaces for people of all genders and sexualities, affirming individuals’ value and worth.

Tash Walker (she/they) | Trustee

Tash is a writer, podcast producer and community organiser, as well as a founding director of the Aunt Nell production company and a queer historian. Tash was trustee and then co-chair of LGBTQIA+ charity Switchboard from 2014 to 2022, and continues to manage their archives at Bishopsgate Institute. They are also a co-founder of Get In Her Ears, a community organisation that supports and promotes women, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ people in music.