Pembroke Dock councillor Joshua Beynon has spoken out about how he was made to feel ‘like some criminal’ after Dyfed-Powys Police took almost three years to investigate graphic homophobic, sexual and violent threats.

As a result of the delays, Cllr Beynon was left struggling with anxiety and believes he will be unlikely to report a similar crime to the police ever again.

Dyfed-Powys Police has now issued a public apology for an investigation that was ‘below the standard that should be expected’.

The abuse started in the summer of 2020 when Cllr Beynon asked for County Hall, Haverfordwest to be lit up in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

But his request prompted a backlash of homophobic and racist messages, some of which were graphic and threatening of sexual and physical violence.

Initially, Mr Beynon did not want to report the abuse, but the threats continued to escalate to the point when he received a threatening message pushed through his door, he felt compelled to ring 101.

He called the 101 line on multiple occasions but received no response. When he received yet another threat of violence online, he felt he had no alternative but to ring 999.

But it then took police officers four days to arrive at his home and commence their investigations.

Police officers subsequently lost Mr Beynon's evidence which had been uploaded via a secure portal, with the result that he had to re-upload it and re-tell his experiences multiple times.

They also admitted missing the need to interview a suspect and, at one point, his case was lost in a system which meant it had not been flagged to a police officer to review.

When he was called to the police station to give a statement, he found officers recording him on body-worn camera as they told him they did not want him to overreact when they told him they were not going to pursue charges.

Mr Beynon said he went from ‘Feeling like a victim, to feeling like you're some sort of criminal'.

He was finally told in March that the case was being dropped.

"What I saw was an organisation that couldn't be bothered to actually deal with it,” he said.

Dyfed-Powys Police have now apologised for the ‘lapse in service’ and said ‘a full and thorough investigation of the reported hate crime followed.

One of the people abusing Mr Beynon was given a Community Protection Notice, but when it was breached and Mr Beynon reported it to the police, no further action was taken.

Cllr Beynon has since stated that as a result of the way in which the matter has been dealt with by Dyfed-Powys Police, he now feels disillusioned in reporting similar matters to officers.

“I haven’t seen the point,” he said.