Learning lessons from hate crimes (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Learning lessons from hate crimes

VICTIM Support is to spend £100,000 on a research project looking into the effect of hate crime on ethnic minorities.

The charity said it would help establish levels of hate crime in England and Wales and allow them to develop new guidelines and to target support.

Since the London bombings on July 7, there have been two reported incidents in Swindon.

One was a graffiti attack on the Bangladeshi Mosque, in Man-chester Road. A bystander who tried to intervene was subjected to verbal abuse.

In another, a group of Asian children were also subjected to verbal abuse as they were playing.

Jaginder Bassi of the Swindon Racial Equality Council said: "We would welcome any support that organisations wish to give victims of hate crime, especially those who have suffered since the London atrocities."

Mr Bassi said there has been a 59 per cent increase in reported hate crime nationally since July 7, compared to the same period last year.

Last week it was revealed that crimes motivated by religious hatred had increased by nearly 600 per cent in the capital since the attacks.

Peter Dunn, a spokesman for Victim Support, said: "Hate crime has a destructive effect not just on victims but on whole communities.

"The government and statutory services have begun to recognise it as a phenomenon, but little is known about how individual victims are effected."

The project is being funded by the Co-operative Financial Services.

Victim Support said it would apply lessons learned in the exercise to other types of hate crime such as attacks on gays, asylum seekers and people with disabilities.

On Tuesday last week, it was revealed that crimes motivated by religious hatred had risen by nearly 600 per cent in London since July 7.

Scotland Yard figures showed there were 269 verbal and physical attacks, and damage to property such as mosques in the period, compared with only 40 in the same three-and-a-half weeks last year.

Victim Support said the number of racially-motivated cases it handles has risen steadily in recent years, from 20,950 in 2002-03 to about 22,000 in 2004-05 year.

Stephanie Tye