Victims ignored

wHEN the definition of hate crime is made ever wider, with every pressure group except white males given a protected status, the police will be swamped and unable to investigate other crimes.

It’s similar to the #MeToo campaign, where injustices are missed because of high-profile virtue-signallers.

The real losers are people such as my 13-year-old, who have physical crime perpetrated against them. The police did not want to know when presented with evidence, citing cutbacks to blame for not investigating.

However, they have resources to follow up historic crimes with a fanfare of publicity and can find the time to pose for selfies and update social media.

why is there a disconnect with the public the police are meant to serve? The evidence points to an open and quickly shut case. JEFFREY DAVISON,

Swanmore, Hants. ROSS cLARK is spot-on about hate crime (Mail). Not only is it a waste of police resources, it has become an incoherent notion, eschewing any form of factual objectivity.

Hate requires no evidence apart from the perception of the complainant, which is a charter for paranoia. It has generated an industry of offence-seekers.

The seeds of this issue are to be found in the political agitation in the Sixties and Seventies in the guise of anti-racism. People of different races were polarised and resentment was created by the portrayal of all whites as racist.

Inevitably, we failed to stem the tide and can see, to our cost, how hate-seeking is itself full of hatred.

Dr FRANK PALMER, Twickenham, Middlesex. wE HAVE ended up with legislation where if someone thinks something is a hate crime, it is a hate crime.

DAVID WHITE, Basingstoke, Hants. wITH the requirement to report non- crime hate incidents, it does not bode well for those of us who don’t love Marmite.

FRANK FAULKNER, Upper Beeding, W. Sussex.