Police-recorded religious hate crime in England and Wales was up by a quarter over the past year, driven by a rise in offences against Jews and Muslims since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict, official figures show.
Hate crimes targeted at Jewish people more than doubled while incidents against Muslims were up 13% on the previous 12 months, according to Home Office data.
There were a total of 10,484 religious hate crime offences recorded by police in the year to March, up 25% from 8,370 the previous year.
The department said this is the highest annual count in these offences since the hate crime collection began in the year ending March 2012.
Publishing the statistics on Thursday, the Home Office said the 25% increase “was driven by a rise in hate crimes against Jewish people and to a lesser extent Muslims and has occurred since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict”.
In the 12 months to March 2024 there were 3,282 religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people, which was more than double the 1,543 recorded the previous year.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the rise as “appalling” and a “stain on our society” as she backed police to take “strong action against those targeting our communities”.
Offences against Jewish people accounted for a third (33%) of all religious hate crimes in the last year, up from a fifth the previous year.
There were 3,866 religious hate crimes targeted against Muslims in the latest year, up 13% from 3,432 recorded the previous year.
Such crimes against Muslims accounted for almost two in five (38%) of all religious hate crimes in that period.
Offences spiked immediately after the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 2023, and the most common hate crimes targeted against people from the two faiths were public fear, alarm or distress offences.
More recent figures, recorded by community organisations rather than police, have shown record highs in antisemitism and Islamophobia up to the end of September.
Jewish charity the Community Security Trust (CST) said the 5,583 incidents recorded across the UK between October 7 2023 and September 30 is the highest total of any 12-month period and was three times that of the previous 12-month period, which saw 1,830 incidents recorded.
Tell Mama said it had recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate and discrimination across the UK in the year since the October 7 attacks, the highest total it had noted in more than a decade.
Ms Cooper said: “The appalling levels of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes outlined in today’s figures are a stain on our society, and this Government will work tirelessly to tackle this toxic hatred wherever it is found.
“We must not allow events unfolding in the Middle East to play out in increased hatred and tension here on our streets, and those who push this poison – offline or online – must face the full force of the law.
“The more than doubling of reported antisemitic hate crime and the significant increase in Islamophobic hate crime are very serious.
“We must have zero tolerance for antisemitism, Islamophobia and every other form of heinous hate in Britain, and we back the police in taking strong action against those targeting our communities.”
Meanwhile, the latest Home Office figures showed falls in other types of police-recorded hate crime in England and Wales.
Such crimes against people based on their sexual orientation fell by 8%, to 22,839, in the year to March, from 24,777 in the previous 12 months.
Disability hate crimes were down by almost a fifth (18%), to 11,719 from 14,285, while hate crimes against transgender people were down by 2% to 4,780 from 4,889.
Disability campaigners warned that the small percentage of hate crimes against disabled people which involved violence resulting in a charge or summons (1%) could see people lose faith in the justice system and be less likely to report.
United Response said there “can be a direct link to more people not reporting disability hate crimes because they don’t see any outcome”.
Race hate crimes still accounted for the majority of police-recorded hate crimes, as with previous years.
There were 98,799 offences in the year to March, down 5% from the previous year when there were 103,625 such crimes recorded by police.
Race hate crime offences peaked at 109,843 offences in the year ending March 2022, with the latest figure representing a fall of 10% from that high, the Home Office said.
The department added that the fall in these offences over the last two years was down to decreases in public fear, alarm or distress and malicious communication offences, which it said will have been partly because of changes in the counting rules the Home Office uses for recorded crime.
A decrease in overall police-recorded hate crime has been recorded two years in a row, with increases in the previous period between 2013 and 2022 thought to have been linked to improvements in crime recording and better identification of what constitutes a hate crime, the Home Office said.
