Hate crime soars a third despite lockdown

HATE crime across the West Midlands rose by 36 per cent in 2020 compared to the year before.

The 6,755 race-related hate crimes reported included large increases in harassment-related offences as well as the sending of grossly offensive messages.

Offences against people identifying as ‘black – other’ rose from 137 to 281, an increase of 105 per cent, while offences against people with

Chinese backgrounds rose from 42 to 65 (54 per cent increase). The victim groups who suffered most offences were ‘Asian – Pakistani’ (826 incidents in 2019 up to 1,047 in 2020) and ‘White – British’ (813 to 1,132).

Racially/religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress was the most common form of race hate crime at 2,710 incidents in 2020 – up from 2,112 the year before. Racially or religiously aggravated common assault rose from 509 incidents in 2019 to 579 in 2020.

June and July of 2020 saw the most incidents reported at 743 and 723. The figures were released by West Midlands Police in response to a Freedom of Information request. Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner Waheed Saleem said: “It’s worrying to see hate crime rising. “Attacking someone physically, verbally or via social media because of their disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity is totally unacceptable and won’t be tolerated. That is why the Police and Crime Commissioner and I have quadrupled the amount of money we make available to local organisations who support hate crime victims to £200,000.

“Our fight against this nasty crime will go on as long as the crime is being committed.”