NSW Police says it will consider issuing a formal apology after a review of 88 historic suspicious deaths revealed 27 men were likely murdered simply for being gay during a violent and dark period in Sydney’s history.

The unsolved homicide unit is examining 23 cases from 1976-2000, with fears homophobic killers might still walk the streets.

Assistant Commissioner Tony Crandell released the findings of Strike Force Parrabell — a police taskforce set up nearly three years ago to review the deaths of gay men.

The final report acknowledges “without qualification both its and society’s acceptance of gay bashings and violence directed towards gay men” during that period in history.

But the report, along with an academic review by Flinders University, found it “almost impossible” to identify a “gay-hate bias” from police investigators working on the cases.

From the 1970s, gay men were found slain in parks, homes or washed onto sharp rocks below Sydney’s secluded gay beats.

The city’s budding LGBTIQ community was being targeted while much of the wider community looked away.

The violence reached a bloody crescendo in the late 1980s and early 1990s, fuelled by a “moral panic” triggered by the HIV epidemic.

There were up to 20 assaults each day, but unsympathetic elements of the police and judiciary meant most attacks were never reported or investigated.

Strike Force Parrabell’s goal was to “do all that is possible” to heal the rift that grew between police and the LGBTIQ community in those decades.

Police investigators and Flinders University academics looked at whether attackers had shown evidence of gay-hate motivation.

They reached different conclusions in some cases, but agreed eight deaths were the result of gay hate.

All eight have been solved – the killers were charged and convicted.

A further 19 deaths are suspected gay hate crimes. Five of those remain unsolved.

Among them was 25-year-old newsreader Ross Warren, whose keys were found at the base of a cliff at a Tamarama gay beat in 1989.

His body was never found, but homophobic youths were known to be launching attacks on gay men in the area to assert masculinity or as gang initiation.

In 2005, the deputy state coroner ruled Mr Warren was a homicide victim.

Scott Johnson, who was found dead on the rocks below North Head’s gay beat in 1988, is also a suspected victim.

His death, like many others, was ruled a suicide by an early inquest.

But Parrabell, like the latest coronial ruling in 2017, found enough evidence to rule homophobic attackers might have thrown or chased him off the cliff.

Only 34 cases had no evidence of bias. The remaining 25 had insufficient evidence for classification – but could not be ruled out.

During much of the review period, churches, the state and the medical world classified homosexuality as a sin, crime and disease respectively.

On Wednesday, NSW Police acknowledged it had been no better – but wanted to move forward.

HIV support organisation ACON welcomed the strike force’s finding. But chief executive Nicolas Parkhill said the recommendations essentially re-inforced existing policies, and he called for police to bolster the Bias Crimes Unit to protect the LGBTIQ community.

Mr Parkhill wants a broader independent review into the criminal justice system’s handling of the under-siege community in the violent decades.

“Concerns have been raised in the past about whether the police can objectively review themselves and their practices,” he said.

He also backed calls for a formal apology.

“This would send a positive sign to any same-sex attracted couple who are still too frightened to hold hands in many places around the state for fear of violence,” he said.

-with AAP