Almost a race hate crime a day in Bolton, figures show
Categories: Latest News
Tuesday March 03 2015
The Bolton News relays information on race hate crime in the Greater Manchester area following a Freedom of Information request to the local police force requesting figures for 2014 broken down by area divisions.
According to the figures “There were 310 hate crimes relating to race in 2014 in Bolton — more than in Salford and Rochdale and nearly twice the number recorded in Bury and Stockport.”
The local paper’s FOI presents figures on race hate crimes recorded by Greater Manchester Police in the respective area divisions in 2014 as follows:
North Manchester – 555
South Manchester – 342
Oldham – 328
Bolton – 310
Bury – 175
Stockport – 162
Rochdale – 256
Salford – 297
Wigan – 188
Trafford – 147
Tameside – 191
Manchester Airport – 6
The paper notes a number of incidents recently, including protests against the Astley Bridge mosque proposal and the arrest and sentencing of individuals for hate crimes relating to the planning approval decision for the mosque by Bolton Council.
The paper notes the high density ethnic populations in north and south Manchester, Oldham and Bolton. The high incidence of race hate crime in Bolton is partly put down to the area’s high ethnic diversity with Chief Supt Shaun Donnellan telling the paper that Bolton had a higher number of victims of hate crime because the borough is more diverse than other parts of Greater Manchester.
From an FOI request we submitted to Greater Manchester Police inquiring about the number of religious hate crimes which were Islamophobic crimes we found that of the 197 religious hate crimes recorded by the force between April 2013 and March 2014, a quarter (49) were Islamophobic hate crimes.
Of the 2,701 race hate crimes recorded by the force area between April 2013 and March 2014, 830 (30.7%) were race hate crimes in which the victim was either Pakistani or Bangladeshi.
The figures are not exhaustive, not least because ethnic identity of the victim is not always recorded and, more significantly, hate crime is vastly under-reported.