Police investigate homophobic hatemail sent to ex-rugby referee Nigel Owens
Nigel Owens has commented that the letter is "an example of the narrow-mindedness in people".
Police in Wales have confirmed that they are investigating homophobic hate mail sent to the former rugby referee Nigel Owens.
The Welsh rugby legend became the first-ever openly gay rugby referee when he came out in 2007. On Tuesday (22 November) he posted a vile letter he had received signed by ‘Steelworker’. Dyfed-Powys Police is investigating.
The BBC reports that Owens believes that the recent drama surrounding the wearing of the One Love armband at the FIFA World Cup contributed to him getting the mail.
Sharing the letter on Twitter Owens said he’d “thought long and hard about posting this letter I received in the post a few weeks ago singed [sic] by a Steel Worker PT.
“But unless we start calling out these [sic] kind of people nothing will change. It hurts and there is no need for all this hate. #BeKind,” he added.
The horrendous letter quotes the Bible as well as telling Owens to “Forget that people pretend to accept you because they don’t. The same goes for Gareth Thomas. His teammates think he is disgusting. He too is being punished by God.”
Of the letter Owens says, “I don’t know what generation the letter writer is from, but he’s an example of the narrow-mindedness in people, whether it’s towards someone’s sexuality, the colour of their skin, or which country they are from.”
It seems former Wales international Gareth Thomas has also received letters from the individual, with Thomas tweeting in response to Owens: “He’s a serial writer butt, he writes those kinds of letters to everyone, good on you [for] calling him out.”
Responding to the hate mail that Owens reviewed, Chair of Pride Cymru, Gian Molinu, thanked Owens for calling out abuse and shared: “It’s appalling to see such proud, successful members of our community being targeted for having the courage to live authentically and openly.”
“Hate speech such as this fuels violence – just like we saw from across the pond in Colorado last week, words have consequences,” he added. “Hate crime has doubled in four years against the LGBTQ+ community, we have to come together across all sections of society to find ways to stop this epidemic of hate.”