Hate crimes increase compared to last year

According to statistics from the Home Office, hate crimes increased 2 per cent compared to last year.

In the year ending March 2025, there were 115,990 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. 

The stats don't include figures from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). Due to a change in crime recording systems in the MPS in February 2024, their data is not directly comparable with data supplied to the Home Office prior to this change 

There was a 6 per cent increase in race hate crimes and a 3 per cent increase in religious hate crimes recorded over the last year. There was a 19 per cent increase in religious hate crimes targeted at Muslims (excluding the MPS), with a spike around the time of the Southport murders and subsequent riots. The Southport attacker was not Muslim.

The number of religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people fell by 18 per cent, from 2,093 to 1,715 offences. However it is noted that the figures exclude numbers from MPS, who recorded 40 per cent of all religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people in the last year.

Religious hate crime targeted at Muslims make up 45 per cent of religious hate crimes. Religious hate crime targeting Jewish people accounted for 29 per cent of religious hate crimes.

Meanwhile, there were decreases in the three other strands: sexual orientation (down 2 per cent), disability (down 8 per cent) and transgender (down 11 per cent).

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 towards someone based on a personal characteristic.