Hate crime complaints now 1 every 5 minutes
A STRING of terror attacks has led to a surge in hate crime, an official report said yesterday.
Police logged a record 94,098 offences in 2017-18 – the equivalent of one every five-and-a-half minutes.
The total is 17 per cent up on the year before and the vast majority – 76 per cent – were classed as race hate crimes.
Others were targeted at disability, sexual orientation or transgender victims.
But the sharpest increase was in religious hate crime, which soared by 40 per cent to 8,338. More than half of these offences were aimed at Muslims, according to the Home Office figures for England and Wales.
One in seven of the hate crimes was considered serious enough to be referred by police to the Crown Prosecution Service.
It comes when officers are turning a blind eye to almost a million offences a year. One in four reports – including sex attacks, burglaries and robberies – is shelved with little or no investigation. David Green, of the Civitas think-tank, said: ‘At a time when the police complain they are short-staffed, they appear to be pandering to political correctness. Now that the Government has asked the Law Commission to investigate whether new groups should be added to those already covered by hate crime laws, the UK’s culture of grievance and victimhood has finally reached peak absurdity.’
Hate crime is defined as an offence perceived as motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a personal characteristic. The Home Office report said four terror attacks in 2017-18 had led to a sharp increase in hate crime.
These outrages took place at the Manchester Arena, London Bridge, Finsbury Park Mosque, and on a Tube train at Parsons Green, west London. The bulletin said that part of the increase in reports was due to improvements in the way police recorded crime after criticism from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Other factors include a greater awareness and improved willingness of victims to come forward. In the past five years, hate crime reported to police has doubled from 42,255. Race-hate crimes rose 14 per cent to 71,251.
But Alex Mayes, of the charity Victim Support, said: ‘Despite these rises, hate crime remains hugely under- reported.’ And Yvette Cooper, the Labour chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, said: ‘These figures show persistent hate crime is very damaging both for those who are targeted by appalling violence or abuse and for entire communities.’ David Tucker, of the College of Policing, said: ‘Nobody should have to face hatred or intolerance because of who they are and we will continue to support police forces to effectively investigate these appalling offences and keep the public safe.’
Home Office minister Baroness Williams said: ‘My message to people and communities affected by hate crime is that we stand in solidarity with you, and police recording of crime clearly shows that government and police forces must not be complacent in rooting these crimes out.’