Hate crime in England and Wales rises for first time in three years

A spate of anti-immigration disorder swept the UK last summer

The number of hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales has risen for the first time in three years, including increases in race and religiously motivated offences, Home Office figures show.

There were 115,990 hate crime offences in the year ending March, up 2% from 113,166 the previous year - but offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police are not included in this year's figures due to changes in how the force records crimes.

Religious hate crimes targeted at Muslims rose by 19%, with a spike following the Southport murders and riots that followed last summer, the Home Office said.

The number of religious hate crimes directed at Jewish people fell by 18% in the year to March.

However, the report says "caution is needed" with those figures as they exclude the Met's data, which recorded "40% of all religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people in the last year".

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Jewish and Muslim communities "continue to experience unacceptable levels of often violent hate crime".

"Today's hate crime statistics show that too many people are living in fear because of who they are, what they believe, or where they come from," she said.

"I will not tolerate British people being targeted simply because of their religion, race, or identity."

Mahmood said the government had increased police patrols at synagogues and mosques following an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last week.

"We stand with every community facing these attacks and will ensure those who commit hate crimes face the full force of the law," she said.

The number of religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people in England and Wales, excluding London, fell by 18% to 1,715 offences, but that fall followed a 113% increase in recorded hate crimes against Jewish people over the previous year.

This included the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.

The total number of race hate crimes increased by 6% in the year to March.

A hate crime is an offence targeting someone's race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability.

A spokesperson for the Community Security Trust, a charity that protects British Jews, said that while the figures showed a fall in recorded antisemitic hate crimes, the instances "remain far too high given the small size of the Jewish community".

"Disappointingly, these statistics exclude data from the Met Police, meaning they are a significant undercount and give only a partial picture of the true scale of anti-Jewish hate crime in the UK," it said.

"Much more needs to be done to tackle this problem, and we will continue to work with government, police and community partners to do so."

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said the latest figures "do not provide a comprehensive picture" due to the absence of Met data but described the increase as "deeply concerning".

The organisation's leads on race, Alison Lowe and John Campion, said "spikes at certain times appear to show clear correlations between events here and abroad and offences against particular communities".

They continued: "To target someone because of perceived difference is completely unacceptable and chips away at the bonds between communities in a way that risks fundamentally damaging the fabric of society".

Rose Simkins, chief executive of the anti-discrimination charity Stop Hate, said the headline figures in the Home Office report would have been higher had the Met data been included, and cautioned against assuming recorded offences provide a full picture.

She said: "Lots of offences are going unreported. Organisations like ours talk to people who aren't in those figures because they don't want to report.

"What the figures don't tell us is the climate in the country at the moment, and in that sense the picture is much grimmer than these figures tell us.

"People are living in fear because there's such a climate of hostility towards certain groups, and that means a reluctance to come forward because people don't want to expose themselves."

"Your colour has become your passport or your nationality," says Suresh Grover, founder of anti-racist charity The Monitoring Group

The hate crimes figures, supplied by the 43 territorial police forces across England and Wales and British Transport Police, recorded falls in hate crime in three other groups including sexual orientation (down 2%), disability (down 8%) and transgender (down 11%.)

There were 137,550 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales including the Met, but the department said the change in recording meant the figures were not directly comparable year-on-year.

The latest figures do not yet include recent events such as unrest following protests outside of asylum hotels and reports of hate crimes at anti-immigration rallies.

Suresh Grover, founder of the anti-racist charity The Monitoring Group, said the figures do not give the full picture of hate crime experienced by some communities.

"Your colour has become your passport or your nationality".

He added that the victim's "first contact" with the police is absolutely critical and if they do not "respond in a speedy way, in a sensitive way and in a way that considers their safety as paramount, everything falls backwards and you lose those people in the statistical data that exists".

"Worse still, you lose people who continue to suffer in silence."

Imam Qari Asim, co-chairman of the British Muslim Network, said: "Whether it is Islamophobia, antisemitism or any form of bigotry, we must confront it together - with unity and courage, not silence."

Of the total religious hate crime offences recorded in the year ending March 2025, 45% targeted Muslims, while 29% targeted Jewish people.

But a breakdown of the "hate crime rate" revealed 106 offences targeted Jewish people per 10,000 population and 12 offences per 10,000 Muslims.