The history of violence against LGBT people in the United Kingdom is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex individuals (LGBTQI), and legal responses to such violence, since the country’s formation in 1707. People who are perceived to be LGBTQI may also be targeted. Those targeted by such violence are perceived to violate heteronormative rules and religious beliefs and contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles.

Prior to 1900 On the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707, continuing English law included the Buggery Act 1533, which made male homosexual acts punishable by death; typically hanging. It had been established during the reign of Henry VIII, and was the first civil legislation applicable against sodomy in England, such offences having previously been dealt with by ecclesiastical courts. The law defined buggery as an unnatural sexual act against the will of God and man. This was later defined by the courts to include only anal penetration and bestiality.R v Jacobs (1817) Russ & Ry 331 confirmed that buggery related only to intercourse per anum by a man with a man or woman, or intercourse per anum or per vaginam by either a man or a woman with an animal. Other forms of "unnatural intercourse" may amount to indecent assault or gross indecency, but do not constitute buggery (see generally: Smith & Hogan, Criminal Law (10th ed.) )

The Act was repealed by section 1 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. c. 31) and by section 125 of the Criminal Law (India) Act 1828 (c. 74). It was replaced by section 15 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1828, and section 63 of the Criminal Law (India) Act 1828, which provided that buggery would continue to be a capital offence. In the period from 1810 to 1835, 46 people convicted of sodomy were hanged and 32 sentenced to death but reprieved. A further 716 were imprisoned or sentenced to the pillory, before its use was restricted in 1816. The last executions were the hangings of James Pratt and John Smith, on 27 November 1835.

Buggery remained a capital offence in England and Wales until the enactment of the Offences against the Person Act 1861; however, male homosexual acts still remained illegal and were punishable by imprisonment and in 1885 section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 extended the laws regarding homosexuality to include any kind of sexual activity between males. Lesbians were never acknowledged or targeted by legislation.

1900–1967 Into the 1900s, homosexual activity remained illegal and punishable by imprisonment. In the early-1950s, the police actively enforced laws prohibiting sexual behaviour between men. This policy led to a number of high-profile arrests and trials. One of those involved the noted computer scientist, mathematician, and war-time code-breaker Alan Turing (1912–1954), convicted in 1952 of "gross indecency". Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce his libido. He accepted chemical castration via oestrogen hormone injections.

Much lesser-known individuals were also victims of the law and of violent crime perpetrated by their fellow countrymen. On 31 July 1950, in Rotherham, an English schoolteacher, Kenneth Crowe, aged 37, was found dead wearing his wife's clothes and a wig. He had approached a miner on his way home from the pub, who upon discovering Crowe was male, beat and strangled him. John Cooney was found not guilty of murder and sentenced to five years for manslaughter.

In response to the violence and unfair treatment of gay men, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed. It maintained the general prohibitions on buggery and indecency between men, but provided for a limited decriminalisation of homosexual acts in England and Wales where three conditions were fulfilled. Those conditions were that the act had to be consensual, take place in private and involve only people that had attained the age of 21. This was a higher age of consent than that for heterosexual acts, which was set at 16. Further, "in private" limited participation in an act to two people. This condition was interpreted strictly by the courts, which took it to exclude acts taking place in a room in a hotel, for example, and in private homes where a third person was present (even if that person was in a different room).

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 extended only to England and Wales, and not to Scotland or Northern Ireland. (The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, where all homosexual behaviour remained illegal, are Crown Dependencies and not part of the UK.)

1978-1983: Muswell Hill murderer Between 1978 and 1983, Dennis Nilson, who was himself gay, murdered at least 12 men, the majority of whom were homeless or gay.

1989–1990: West London murders Towards the end of 1989 and the start of 1990, there were a series of unsolved murders in west London over a period of six months.

In September 1989, Christopher Schliach, a barrister who was gay, was murdered in his home; he was stabbed more than 40 times. Three months later, Henry Bright, a hotelier who was gay, was also stabbed to death at his home. A month later, William Dalziel, a hotel porter who was gay, was found unconscious on a roadside in Acton, west London. He died from severe head injuries. Three months after this, actor Michael Boothe was murdered in west London (see below 2007 Met review).

In July 1990, following these murders, hundreds of lesbians and gay men marched from the park where Boothe had been killed to Ealing Town Hall and held a candlelit vigil. The demonstration led to the formation of OutRage, who called for the police to start protecting gay men instead of arresting them. In September 1990, lesbian and gay police officers established the Lesbian and Gay Police Association (Lagpa/GPA).

1999: The Admiral Duncan pub bombing

In May 1999, the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho was bombed by former British National Party member David Copeland, killing three people and wounding at least 70.

2002: CPS 'zero tolerance' On 27 November 2002, the Crown Prosecution Service announced a 'zero tolerance' approach towards perpetrators of anti-gay offences; this also covers crimes against transgender people. Crimes considered 'homophobic' or 'transphobic' are to be assessed in a similar way to those considered racist (e.g. the victim regarding them as such). "There is no statutory definition of a homophobic or transphobic incident. However, when prosecuting such cases, and to help us to apply our policy on dealing with cases with a homophobic or transphobic element, we adopt the following definition: 'Any incident which is perceived to be homophobic or transphobic by the victim or by any other person.'"

2003: Criminal Justice Act The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is passed, in which section 146 empowers courts in England and Wales to impose tougher sentences for offences motivated or aggravated by the victim's sexual orientation.

2006: first prosecution for homophobic murder On 14 October 2005, London, Jody Dobrowski was beaten to death on Clapham Common by two men who perceived him as being gay; Dobrowski was beaten so badly he had to be identified by his fingerprints. Thomas Pickford and Scott Walker were given life sentences in what was described as a 'homophobic murder' in June 2006. This was the first prosecution in England and Wales where Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was used in sentencing the killers; this enabled the courts to impose a tougher sentence for offences motivated or aggravated by the victim's sexual orientation, in this case a minimum of 30 years in prison.

In 2007, UK's Channel 4 released Clapham Junction, a TV drama partially based on the murder. The film written by Kevin Elyot and directed by Adrian Shergold portrays to some detail the victim Jody Dobrowski. In the script to the film however, the Clapham Common's victim's name was changed to Alfie Cartwright, a waiter. The role was played by actor David Leon. The film was shown for the first time on 22 July 2007, on Channel 4, almost two years after the murder, to mark the 40th anniversary of decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, and was meant to be a film against violence against gay people and hate crimes based on sexual orientation. It was shown a second time on More4, just a few days later, on 30 July 2007.

2007: Metropolitan Police review In July 2004 an independent inquiry into police procedures carried out by the independent Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Advisory Group for the Metropolitan Police was announced. In May 2007 the report for the independent review was released; it had examined how detectives had handled 10 murders of gay men or transsexuals. The report found that some police inquiries were hampered by lack of knowledge, reliance on unfounded stereotypes and personal prejudices; these problems were mirrored and exacerbated by media coverage. The review recognised that Scotland Yard's work with the gay, lesbian and transsexual communities and its investigative processes had improved significantly since the 1990s, but warned that more radical steps were needed. The cases reviewed, and the findings, included: Actor Michael Boothe, in west London died in April 1990, beaten to death by a gang of up to six men close to a public lavatory. The police said he had been the victim of "an extraordinarily severe beating, of a merciless and savage nature". He managed to give a description of his attackers before he died, and a reward of £15,000 was offered, but no one was caught, and the crime remains unsolved. The police review identified institutional homophobia within the Metropolitan Police as a factor. Colin Ireland, age 43, who in 1993 was jailed for life for murdering five gay men. Ireland picked up the men at pubs in London, and then killed them in their own homes. A Scotland Yard review showed that Ireland's capture was hampered by institutional homophobia within the Metropolitan Police. Andrew Collier, a housing warden, aged 33, was one of Ireland's victims; the murder was classified as homophobic and linked with the death of Peter Walker, Ireland's first victim. The report said the police could have done more to warn the community of the links between the murders. Emanuel Spiteri, age 41, who was strangled to death in his flat in Catford by Ireland, after meeting in a pub in Earls Court, west London. Robyn Brown, a 23-year-old transsexual prostitute, was found stabbed to death in her flat in London on 28 February 1997. The original report described her as being 23-year-old Gemma Browne, formerly James Darwin Browne. The case went cold for over ten years, but her killer, James Hopkins, was eventually caught; in January 2009 he was jailed for life. The report found that identifying her to the public using different names may have hampered attempts to connect with relevant communities. Jaap Bornkamp, a 52-year-old florist, was knifed in June 2000 in south-east London in a homophobic attack; the murder remains unsolved despite the police displaying 20 ft by 10 ft images of CCTV footage taken near the murder scene. He was attacked after leaving a night club, and the police are reported as saying there was no confrontation or argument, but that the attack was homophobic and unprovoked. The report found this case to have been a model of police good practice. Geoffrey Windsor, 57, in south London died in June 2002 from head injuries in a park after he was beaten and robbed. The police said the murder was motivated by homophobia. A review of this and similar cases in the area highlighted poor policing due to institutional homophobia within the police, particularly in not taking previous attacks in the area more seriously.

2000–2009