30 sentences for hate crime increased in the last 18 months

North Yorkshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have released examples of some of the county’s hate crime cases uplifted in court in the last eighteen months in the hope that it will encourage further victims and witnesses of hate crime to come forward.

Under hate crime legislation the courts must pass increased sentences where prosecutors evidence that offences have been motivated by hostility towards a person’s race, religion, disability, transgender identity or sexuality.

The following are examples of hate crime cases investigated by North Yorkshire Police and prosecuted by Yorkshire and Humberside CPS between April 2017 and September 2018 which resulted in a conviction and an uplifted sentence.*

1. A witness telephoned the police to report an ongoing assault occurring in the street. When the police arrived the defendant was arrested for being drunk and disorderly behaviour and for assault. On being arrested the defendant spat and swore at the police officer who was arresting her and then verbally abused the officer in a homophobic manner. The defendant was further arrested for assaulting a police officer. At court the defendant pleaded guilty to assaulting the police officer. The CPS also accepted a guilty plea from the defendant to using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour, with intent to cause fear of or provoke unlawful violence as an alternative to the original assault charge. The defendant was sentenced to a two year community order with 50 rehabilitative activity requirement days, ordered to pay £50 compensation, £85 towards prosecution costs, a victim surcharge of £85 and as the uplift of the sentence ordered to pay a £100 fine (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

2. The defendant racially abused and assaulted a police officer and assaulted another after they found him unconscious on the street and took him to the hospital. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to racially aggravated common assault, racially aggravated fear a d of violence by words, assaulting a constable in the execution of his / her duty and being drunk and disorderly in a public place. He was sentenced to 26 weeks’ imprisonment uplifted from 18 weeks. He was also ordered to pay £55 to each victim (Case finalised between July and September 2017).

3. The defendant racially abused a doctor in a hospital. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing and was sentenced to a £217 fine uplifted from £280. He was also ordered to pay £85 costs, a £30 victim surcharge and £50 compensation to the victim (Case finalised between July and September 2017).

4. After exiting his home address the victim was approached by the defendant who began questioning him about his religious beliefs in an intimidating manner. The defendant then proceeded to assault the victim by pushing him to the chest causing the victim to stagger backwards. The defendant was charged with religiously aggravated common assault. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 28 days custody, uplifted from 14 days, and £115 compensation (Case finalised between April and June 2018).

5. The defendant racially abused a member of staff at a taxi rank before refusing to get out of a taxi and resisting arrest. She pleaded guilty at the first hearing to racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing and obstructing or resisting a constable in the execution of their duty. She was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order, a 15 day rehabilitation activity requirement and 80 hours’ unpaid work uplifted from 50 hours. She was also ordered to pay £85 costs and an £85 victim surcharge (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

6. The defendant assaulted a member of bar staff who evicted him from the bar and then racially abused an assaulted the officer who arrested him for the first assault. He pleaded guilty on the day of trial to assault by beating and racially aggravated assault by beating. He was sentenced to ten months’ imprisonment suspended for 18 months and 220 hours’ unpaid work. This was uplifted from a Community Order with the same amount of unpaid work (October and December 2017).

7. The defendant religiously abused the victim in the street, spitting and throwing water at her. She pleaded guilty at the first hearing to religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing and religiously aggravated common assault by beating. She was sentenced to a 12 month Youth Referral Order uplifted from nine months. She was also ordered to pay £120 compensation (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

8. The defendant racially abused a store manager and a shop assistant targeting them on two separate occasions on the same day. Following the second incident the police were called. The defendant pleaded guilty to racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing. He was sentenced to a 12 month community order, a non-accredited programme, 15-day rehabilitative activity requirement, £200 compensation for each victim, £85 costs, and a £85 victim surcharge. The court announced that the sentence was uplifted by rewarding a higher level of compensation for each victim (Case finalised between April and June 2018).

9. The defendant assaulted the victim and homophobically abused the victim’s stepmother when she confronted him. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to assault by beating and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He was sentenced to a six month Referral Order uplifted from four months. He was also ordered to pay a £20 victim surcharge and £85 costs (October and December 2017).

10. The defendant racially abused and assaulted a member of door staff after she was removed from the pub. She was found guilty after trial of racially aggravated assault by beating. She was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order and 230 hours’ unpaid work uplifted from 150 hours. She was also ordered to pay £620 costs and an £85 victim surcharge (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

11. The defendant attempted to board a bus that was stationary at an alighting only bus stop. The bus driver asked the defendant to leave the bus but he refused and started shouting racial, religious, and homophobic abuse towards the bus driver and members of the public as they walked by. The bus driver called the police and the defendant was arrested. He was later charged and pleaded guilty to three charges of intending to cause racially and religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to another person by using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour. The defendant was sentenced to 26 weeks custody uplifted from 18 weeks for his behaviour towards the bus driver. He was also sentenced to nine weeks custody uplifted from four and a half weeks for his behaviour towards one member of the public, and another nine weeks custody uplifted from four and a half weeks for his behaviour towards a second member of the public (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

12. The defendant racially abused a security guard who confronted him for shoplifting. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to theft from a shop and racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing. He was sentenced to a 12 month Community order, alcohol monitoring for 60days, a 15 day rehabilitation activity requirement and 80 hours’ unpaid work uplifted from 60 hours (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

13. The defendant attended a pharmacy to collect a prescription. Whilst being served he attempted to engage the pharmacist in a conversation about Islamic law and to show the pharmacist videos on his phone which were of violent acts against people. Due to the pharmacist’s refusals to engage with the defendant he began to shout at her in a religiously abusive manner. The defendant was charged with intentionally causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress, by using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour. The defendant elected to be tried by jury at the Crown Court but pleaded guilty to the charge on the day of the trial. He was sentenced to six months custody suspended for one year with a nine month drug rehabilitation requirement (DRR), and 20 rehabilitative activity requirement days. The Judge specified that the sentence uplift was moving from a community order to a custodial term. The Judge also granted a five year restraining order (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

14. The defendant racially abused a member of staff at a petrol station. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to racially aggravated fear or provocation of violence by words or writing. He was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment uplifted from a high Community Order (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

15. The defendant caused a violent disturbance in a fast food restaurant and racially abused staff. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to affray and was sentenced to 26 weeks’ imprisonment uplifted from 18 weeks. He was also ordered to pay a £115 victim surcharge (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

16. The defendant racially abused and assaulted a police officer and assaulted another after they found him unconscious on the street and took him to the hospital. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to racially aggravated common assault, racially aggravated fear of violence by words, assaulting a constable in the execution of his / her duty and being drunk and disorderly in a public place. He was sentenced to 26 weeks’ imprisonment uplifted from 18 weeks. He was also ordered to pay £55 to each victim (Case finalised between July and September 2017).

17. The defendant entered the fish and chip shop where her ex-partner works. On seeing her ex-partner behind the customer counter she started to shout abusive language towards him. Another shop assistant intervened and asked the defendant to leave the premises but she responded by verbally abusing the assistant in both a religious and racial manner. The defendant is charged with using racially and religiously aggravated threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, with intent to cause a person to believe that immediate unlawful violence would be used against them. The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge at the first court hearing and was sentenced to a 24 month community order, 30 rehabilitative activity requirement days and 300 hours unpaid work, uplifted from 180 hours. The defendant was also ordered to pay £100 compensation and £85 in prosecution costs (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

18. The defendant racially abused and assaulted a police officer. He pleaded guilty on the day of trial to racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing and assaulting a constable in the execution of his duty. He was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order with a curfew and 80 hours’ unpaid work uplifted from 40 hours. He was also ordered to pay £100 compensation, an £85 victim surcharge and £620 costs (October and December 2017).

19. The defendant had been asked by staff at a hotel to leave the premises. The defendant refused and began to follow staff and customers around the hotel lobby shouting racially offensive statements and asking customers what their religion was and then responding that the religion they had specified was not allowed in the hotel. The defendant then left the hotel and continued to make racially and religiously abusive statements which could be heard by members of the public who were walking by. The defendant pleaded guilty at court to the charge of using threatening, abusive words, behaviour or disorderly behaviour likely to cause religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress. She was fined £100, uplifted from £30 and ordered to pay £85 towards prosecution costs (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

20. The defendant racially abused and assaulted her housemate. She pleaded guilty at the first hearing to racially aggravated common assault by beating. She was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order and 200 hours unpaid work uplifted from 150 hours. She was also ordered to pay £100 compensation and £85 costs (October and December 2017).

21. The defendant head butted the victim just after being told the victim is gay and made a homophobic comment to him immediately afterwards. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to assault by beating. He was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order and 120 hours’ unpaid work uplifted from 80 hours. He was also ordered to pay £85 costs, an £85 victim surcharge and £250 compensation (Case finalised between July and September 2017).

22. The defendant racially abused the owner of a takeaway shop and tipped over a fruit machine. When he was arrested, he was found to be in possession of a Class A drug. He was charged with racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing, criminal damage and possessing a controlled drug of Class A. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to all offences and was sentenced to a two month Community Order with 120 hours’ unpaid work uplifted from a fine. He was also ordered to pay £85 costs, an £85 victim surcharge, £127.85 for the damage and £100 compensation for the victim (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

23. The defendant religiously abused a doctor who was treating him in hospital and assaulted a security guard. He pleaded guilty to causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress and assault by beating. He was sentenced to a total of 18 months’ imprisonment uplifted from six months (Case finalised between October and December 2017).

24. ­­The defendant sent an email to a former teacher containing offensive and derogatory comments about disabled people, including one of the teacher’s disabled students. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to sending an indecent or offensive message. He was sentenced to a four month Youth Referral Order uplifted from three months. He was also ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

25. The defendant shouted homophobic abuse at her neighbours and caused damaged to their garden as part of an on-going dispute. She pleaded guilty to harassment without violence and criminal damage. She was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order, a 15 day rehabilitation activity requirement and a 40 day curfew uplifted from a 30 days. He was also ordered to pay £300 compensation and a two year Restraining Order was imposed (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

26. The defendant was detained by security guards in a supermarket for shoplifting. He verbally abused and threatened them with violence, religiously abusing one of them. He pleaded guilty at the first hearing to theft from a shop, religiously aggravated fear or provocation of violence by words or writing and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of or provoke unlawful violence. He was sentenced to 16 weeks’ imprisonment uplifted from eight weeks, suspended for12 months. He was also ordered to pay £13 compensation to the supermarket and £260 compensation to the victim of the religious abuse (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

27. The defendant racially abused her neighbour. She was found guilty of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing and was sentenced to a four month Youth Rehabilitation Order uplifted from three months (Case finalised between April and June 2017).

28. The defendant was very drunk and was struggling to stand up. As he stumbled a security guard went to assist him and the defendant responded by verbally abusing the security guard by using homophobic terms. He also spat at the security guard and was racially abusive towards a member of the public who was sat close by. The defendant was charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He was also charged with common assault, and racially aggravated harassment. The defendant pleaded guilty to all three charges, plus a further charge of criminal damage for an incident that occurred whilst the defendant was in police custody. He was sentenced to 20 rehabilitative activity requirement days, a six month curfew uplifted from three months, ordered to pay £85 costs, and a total of £95 compensation (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

29. The defendant racially abused the victim and her young son. She was found guilty after trial of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing. She was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order and a 10 day rehabilitation activity requirement uplifted from a Conditional Discharge. She was also ordered to pay £100 compensation, an £85 victim surcharge and £75 costs (Case finalised between January and March 2018).

30. The defendant whilst in a public area of a city centre shouted insults and made offensive gestures towards a group of German exchange students that were both sexually and racially abusive. The police were called to the scene and the defendant was arrested. He was later charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour thereby causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress which was racially aggravated. The defendant was sentenced to eight weeks imprisonment uplifted from six weeks imprisonment (Case finalised between July and September 2018).

Hate crime is defined as any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.

Between October 2017 and October 2018 there was 506 recorded hate crimes in North Yorkshire, an increase of 32% compared to the previous year when 382 hate crimes were recorded.**

Hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry constituted the largest share of hate crimes, comprising 65.6% of the crimes reported in 2017/18. Meanwhile, 15.6% were related to the victim’s sexual orientation, while 10.1% were driven by their religion. The remainder of the hate crimes were motivated by disability (6.7%), transgender identity (1.4%) or other (5.7%).

Commenting, Superintendent Mark Khan, lead in force for hate crime said:

“The nature of prejudice is such that if hate speech is not challenged at an early stage, a person who holds those thoughts and feelings tends to be emboldened and their behaviour can escalate towards carrying out more physically violent actions against their victims.

“Often, victims of hate crime are too scared to “stand up for themselves” so I would like to thank each and every victim in these cases for having the courage to report these incidents.

“These uplifted court results are just the tip of the iceberg and our officers work tirelessly every day to investigate crimes of this nature and bring offenders to justice.

“Our message is clear – to target hate at a person because of their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender is a crime and we will not tolerate it.

“We would urge anyone who is a victim or witness of hate crime to report it. By reporting it, we can stop it.”

Commenting Gerry Wareham Chief Crown Prosecutor, CPS Yorkshire and Humberside said:

“When we prove offences are hate crimes the law empowers and requires the court to impose longer sentences.

“This extra sanction, and the act of explicitly flagging these crimes for what they are, are powerful ways of sending the message that hate crime is viewed very seriously in the eyes of the law and society.

“I would encourage all victims to report hate crimes with the clear assurance we always make every effort to ensure that those responsible are held fully accountable.”

Julia Mulligan, North Yorkshire’s elected Police and Crime Commissioner, said:

“We will only increase the confidence of victims to come forward, and reassure them they will get the justice they deserve, by pulling together and prosecuting these offenders to the full extent of the law.

“These uplifted prosecutions demonstrate how seriously the police and CPS take these incidents, and I would encourage anyone who was suffered hate at the hands of someone else to come forward and get the support the police and others provide.”

To report a hate crime please dial 101 or in an emergency, always dial 999. Alternatively, if victims or witnesses do not wish to speak to the police, organisations True Vision | report-it.org or Supporting Victims in North Yorkshire | 01609 643 100 | help@suportingvictim.org can be contacted for further advice and support.

For more information about hate crime visit northyorkshire.police.uk/hatecrime | For more information on how the CPS prosecutes hate crimes visit: cps.gov.uk/hate-crime

*Examples provided by the Yorkshire and Humberside Crown Prosecution Service

**Recorded hate crimes can have multiple markers and the percentages shown are specific to hate crimes not all crimes.

 

 

 

Last modified: November 27, 2018