On the 9th of May, Sylvia was a guest speaker at the first Hate Crime Symposium in Strasbourg.

'When Law and Hate Collide' was the first Pan-European Hate Crime Symposium and was part of the research programme investigating the current legislation in Europe. Their aim is

"To provide the European Parliament and the Commission with a working definition of Hate Crime and consensus policy/best practice guidelines in order to ensure all Member States of the Union offer the same legal and legislative certainty across the Union."

The two day event brought together the three project universities, University of Central Lancashire from the UK, University of Gothenburg in Sweden and University of Goethe in Germany.

They held round table talks which included European Members of Parliament and guests and staff from the projects.

Sylvia started her presentation discussing Sophie's case and how it was deemed a "hate crime equal to all others" by Judge Russell at the sentencing after the trial in April 2008. The work of the Foundation in the field of Hate Crime was revealed, including the aims of the charity to challenge the prejudice based attitudes and bullying in schools, youth clubs and young offenders institutes.

She played Beholder's "Never Take Us Down" film recorded as an expression of how alternative people felt about Sophie's shocking murder.

Sylvia also played the amazing Dark Angel film produced by Illamasqua to mark the birthday of Sophie in 2009.

The questions Sylvia fielded were very challenging but as usual she had the answers ready !

The support was really positive and the trip well worth the effort.

Thank you to Mr Anthony MARK Cutter , the Principle Investigator from UCLAN for inviting Sylvia to this important event.

For more details of the project please go to their website

http://www.h8crime.eu/

We look forward to working with the project in the future.