Reporting a Hate Crime or Incident
Hate Crimes and Incidents can be reported a number of ways including directly to the Police:
- by calling 999 in an emergency situation or 101 in a non-emergency situation
- via the True Vision website
- via Northumbria Police’s website
- by calling or visiting a station of Northumbria Police
Reports can also be made without contacting the Police directly, anonymously if you wish, through:
- Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or through their website at www.crimestoppers-uk.org
- Tell MAMA for anti-Muslim hate incidents by calling 0800 456 1226, texting 0115 707 00 07 or at www.tellmamauk.org
- Community Security Trust for antisemitism by calling 0800 032 3263 or at www.cst.org.uk
- GALOP for anti-LGBT+ incidents by calling 020 7704 2040 or at www.galop.org.uk
Support and resources around hate crime can also be found through:
- Victim Support on 0808 168 9111 https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/crime-info/types-crime/hate-crime/
It is important to report Hate Incidents as well as Hate Crimes as they allow any trends to be determined and Hate Incidents may escalate to Hate Crimes.
What is a Hate Crime?
A hate crime is any criminal offence perceived by the victim or someone else to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s protected characteristic of:
- Race
- Religion
- Disability
- Sexual orientation
- Transgender identity
Additionally, whilst not recognised nationally, Northumbria Police records crimes based on gender or age as hate crimes, so this is included within the scope of this policy statement.
A hate incident is any incident that is perceived by the victim or someone else to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on one of the above perceived characteristics, but which may not constitute a criminal offence or result in a conviction. The hate crime or incident does not have to be directed towards a person e.g., an empty house could be vandalised with racist graffiti.
Some of the types of behaviour which could be classed as hate crimes include:
- verbal abuse
- threatening or abusive behaviour towards any person
- harassment
- damage or threats of damage to property (including arson);
- writing threatening, abusive or insulting messages by letter, graffiti or on social media
- distributing and or displaying racist leaflets, posters or notifications and posts on social media (Twitter, Facebook etc.)
- physical assault
- jokes/’banter’
- malicious phone calls or text messages
- bullying at school/college or in the workplace.
It is important to note that perception is crucial with hate crimes and incidents, if one person perceives it to be hate related it can be recorded as such, this does not have to be the victim, it may be the police or a witness. Proof is not required to report it, the police will still investigate, and it will allow the police to monitor any trends in hate related crimes and incidents.
