The number of racially or religiously-motivated crimes being reported to West Yorkshire Police has risen 12 times faster than in other parts of the country.

Government figures show 2,493 crimes were reported in 2007/08 across the county, compared with 234 in 1999/2000 – a rise of 965 per cent.

Nationally there has been a 82 per cent increase in that period from 21,750 to 39,643.

Across West Yorkshire there were fewer than 1,000 incidents reported each year until 2003/04. Numbers increased until 2006/07, but had since started to fall.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “Over the last decade West Yorkshire Police has introduced a number of schemes to improve the number of people from all races and religious backgrounds coming forward to confidently report hate crimes.

“This has led to an increase in the number of these types of crimes that are being recorded, as has the increased officer training and recording systems that the Force has put into place to tackle this issue.

“As part of this, over 200 Hate Incident Reporting Centres have been set up across the region.”

According to the Liberal Democrats, “better recording” of crime could not be the sole reason for the rise.

Party spokesman Chris Huhne said: “Police forces are more sensitive to these issues today but there is no way that better recording can explain such colossal increases across the country.”

Figures for 2007/08 show that 3296 racist incidents were recorded:

• 52% of all victims were of Asian origin, 26% were White and 14% were Black African or Black Caribbean, and 8% were from other ethnic groups.

• In West Yorkshire, 88.6% of the population are white, 8.7% are Asian, 1% are black, and 1.7% are other ethnic backgrounds.

BRADFORD BPP COMMENT:

We checked the West Yorkshire Police site and the local centre to report your crime is:

Action for Black Community Development Ltd
(ABCD Ltd), Suite 5
55 Godwin Street
Bradford
BD1 2SH

Now, a White person is going to run along to report their racial assault there we're sure!  All these incidents should be reported at a police station but the fact is ANYTHING that is deemed 'racial' by the police is listed as a racial incident, i.e. a bit of name called is listed the same as a serious assault. As the non-White is keen to play the 'Race Card' whenever ANY incident is reported to anyone, it's obvious they are going to top the list for the amount of victims.

The fact is, although they will deny it, the police, certainly in Bradford, do not acknowledge racial crime when WHITE people are the victims and this attitude is preventing any accurate recording of the issue.