CPS new action plan to fight hate crime

By The Press Association23rd October 2014News EnglandCrime, Hate Speech / Harassment, News England

Prosecutors have drawn up a fresh action plan for tackling disability hate crimes after figures revealed a drop in the number of convictions for the offence.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the number of convictions for disability hate crime fell in 2012/2013 from 494 to 470, however, the proportion of successful convictions actually increased from 77.2% to 81.9%.

A new action action plan includes a commitment to improve how prosecutors identify and record disability hate crime and also underlines unique features to the offence such as violence and verbal abuse but also “insidious or exploitative offending”.

Elsewhere, the total number of all hate crime convictions increased from 10,794 to 11,915 and the hate crime conviction rate also increased from 82.6% to 84.7%.

Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions, said: “I recognise that there is more to do, especially around disability hate crime.

“While I’m delighted to see a record high conviction rate and that the rate of cases we are charging is up to 80% from 72.4% last year, we will be working hard with the police to encourage more disability hate crime cases to be referred to us, and we will be really focusing on our handling of these cases through the court system.

“I am doing this through our new Disability Hate Crime Action Plan, which addresses where we must improve our handling of disability hate crime cases.

“Hate crimes can be particularly devastating to victims who have been targeted simply because of their race, their religion, their sexuality, gender, disability or age.

“These crimes display an ugly element of our society and one which it is very important that police and prosecutors feel empowered to tackle so they can bring offenders to justice.”