Member

There have been particularly grim examples of inconsistency. Look at the dossier, published last week, of ignored antisemitic crimes and incidents against Jews in Birmingham—evidence supplied by a whistle- blower. They included an attack on a 12 year-old girl, who was punched in the face and kicked in the stomach, the child assailant shouting “Free Palestine” at her. The police email said, “No action required”. No NCHI there, it would seem. Contrast that with the infamous case some years ago, on which I reported, of the four year 10 students in Wakefield who had non-crime hate incidents logged against them after they kicked around a Koran in the playground and scuffed it. Their head teacher noted that there was no malicious intent and the book remained intact, but the police responded to community concerns that were whipped up. There was a kind of outcry, and you could see the weaponising of non-crime hate incidents. Those children got non-crime hate incidents logged against them. Will the Minister comment on how such weaponisation of hate crime as a concept can be rooted out? How will police forces avoid such preference for some subjective lived experiences of hate over others? How can we deal with that? That is a hangover from non-crime hate incidents.