A FALL in religiously aggravated offences was recorded in England and Wales last year. Only 22 people were prosecuted (41 in 2006). Twenty of the 22 pleaded, or were found, guilty, reports the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Two men in Derbyshire who had attacked gravestones were charged with a separate religiously aggravated offence for each of the 35 desecrated gravestones. They were also charged with criminal damage to them. The judge advised the Crown to reduce the charges to two: a religiously motivated offence, and criminal damage. The men were found not guilty on the first charge, but received a “substantial term of imprisonment” for the criminal damage, to which they had already pleaded guilty.
The CPS report also described how a Turkish Muslim woman of 46, who was seven months pregnant, was waiting with her 17-year-old daughter at a bus stop when they were spat on and sworn at by a drunken 20-year-old. He pleaded guilty, and received a three-month suspended sentence and 12-month supervision order, and was told to attend an alcohol-abuse programme. Each of the victims was awarded Ł100.
In another case, a married couple had been subjected to religious abuse from a man and his family. One day, he shouted religiously abusive language at the couple in their car as he drove past.
Later that day, he shouted religious abuse at them through the window of their parked car. Finally, when the husband got out of his car, the man tried to set his alsatian on him.
For his offences that day, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment suspended for a year, a 12-month supervision order, and a three-month curfew between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Although religiously aggravated offences were diminishing, racially aggravated offences had increased by 23 per cent. There were 9145 defendants, of whom 7694 were prosecuted. More than three-quarters pleaded guilty, and 15 per cent were found guilty after a trial.
The Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents of racial hatred, recorded 114 assaults — one life-threatening — and a total of 547 anti-Semitic incidents, 47 short of the record number the previous year, which was “triggered” by events such as the Israel-Lebanon conflict. |
back to News
previous story
|
next story 
back to top
