Application of Legislation, Criminal Cases, Court Rulings
Generally, such legislation is strictly abided by. Nevertheless, there are still complaints about hidden forms of discrimination, such as individuals of Asian or African origin being detained by police more frequently , and discrimination of individuals from Eastern Europe during the employee selection process or when being provided services in financial organisations , etc.
The disproportionally high number of deaths of foreign nationals and minorities due to police brutality and use of excessive force during and after apprehension is a big problem.
The human rights activists also blame the government for the existence of institutional racism in the police force, where, according to their opinion, ethnic minorities are not sufficiently represented. For example, London is 40% populated by minorities, of whom only 10% are represented in the police force and mostly in low positions.
On January 28, 2014, it has emerged that the Greater Manchester Police has demanded a rewrite of a report on its recruitment policies after the report had concluded that the force was “institutionally racist”. The report also found severe problems with sexism and homophobia within the Greater Manchester Police force. In May it was reported that the police only looks into 1% of the complaints regarding racism in the police. Over an eight-year period, from 7983 allegations of racism in the police force only 77 cases were reviewed and only 3 have led to the dismissal of police staff. On July 17th, new figures released by Police Scotland revealed that out of almost 300 complaints about racist behaviour by police officers, only nine in total were upheld over a period of five-and-a-half years. On August 19th, 2014, media outlets reported that Freedom of Information requests by the Press Association found officers made racist comments online. Of 828 cases in England and Wales from 2009 to February this year, 9% ended in resignation, dismissal or retirement. This indicates that the law enforcement is reluctant to engage in cases related to xenophobia.
Some law enforcement actions may be regarded as condoning xenophobia. In March, 2014, inquest jury returned a verdict about unlawful murder of Jimmy Mubengi – citizen of Angola, who died in 2010 after being detained on an airplane during his deportation. Despite this, the three guards in question have been released from all charges.
In 2012 the government announced the development of a new programme aimed to fight the hate crimes, called “Challenge it, Report it, Stop it”, which is largely based upon involving the citizens to fight against the evil that are hate crimes, specifically by preventing such crimes from happening in the first place. The British police have been diligently monitoring all of the reported hate crimes and constructing a detailed statistic since 2008.
Hate crime rate had increased in 2014. Official report on hate crime in England and Wales, released in October 2014, showed that the hate crime rate had increased by 5%. During the reviewed period (October 2013 – October 2014), 44 480 hate crime cases have been reported, of which 84% (37 484) were motivated by racism, 10% - by homophobia and 5% - religion. 4% of victims were disabled and 1% were transgender.
In May 2015, a similar report was released in Northern Ireland. In 2014/2015, there have been 3 419 hate crime and incidents, of which 1 517 were based on religion (18.1% more than in 2013), 1 356 were based on racism (38.1% increase), 334 were based on homophobia (19.3% increase), 138 were based on hatred towards the disabled (29% increase) and 21 cases were related to hatred towards transgender people (9.5% decrease).
Report in Scotland showed that only 5 388 cases of hate crime and hate incidents have been recorded in 2014. 3 785 of them were motivated by national hatred (8.75% reduction and lowest since 2003/2004), 841 – motivated by homophobia (5% reduction), 569 – religion (3% reduction). The number of hate incidents during football matches in Scotland fell by 6% (193 cases).
The most notable increase in such crime occurred in the capital. According to the Evening Standard, the total number of hate incidents in London had increased by 28% (from 9 965 to 12 749). Anti-Semitic incidents increased the most (from 209 to 495 – 138% increase) , which can be explained by the controversial Israeli operation in Gaza.
Thus, it can be concluded that hate crime rate had increased in England and Wales by 5% on average, by 20-25% in Northern Ireland, and decreased in Scotland by 6%.
Hate crime detection rate in the UK is around 50%. Though it must be said that British courts have been more active in applying tougher punishments for crimes motivated by hatred. On February 13, a 53-year-old man was given a tougher sentence for racist abuse. On February 17, two men have been sentenced to ten month and one man to eight month in jail,, after they had attacked a Pakistani man in Ashford. They racially abused and spat at him, then physically assaulted their victim and dragged it onto the middle of the road where there was oncoming traffic. On February 19, a gang of five has been sentenced after a racist attack at a Thai restaurant in Cambridge in June last year.
On March 5, 2014, a football fan who shouted racist abuse at an Jordan football player was fined £300 and prohibited from attending football games. On March 13, soldier Warren Butler was sentenced to probation for publishing racist posts on Facebook.
On May 6, 2 men were sentenced to 2 years in prison for a racist attack on a Kuwaiti student at Bangor. On May 6, the court in the UK sentenced two women to pay fines for tearing up copies of the Koran and throw the scraps like confetti during a football match. On May 9, an Englishman of Nazi views of Birkenhead in the Merseyside county was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the preparation of terrorist attacks in the region's mosques. On May 22, London restaurant employee, born in Slovakia, was sentenced to 180 hours of community service for the demonstration of the Nazi greeting.
On June 16, 2014, 3 men who attacked a native of Asia in Widnes were sentenced to 4.5 years in prison. On June 19, a Scottish man was sentenced to 4 years in prison for setting fire to a house of 3 Asian men in Clackmannanshire. On June 19, a group of 3 people has been sentenced to a total of 52 years in prison for a murder of a Roma in Doncaster. On June 20, an 18-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man was imprisoned for 12 and 9 months respectively, for the desecration of the Central Mosque in Edinburgh with bacon strips. The woman admitted that she was a member of the far-right Scottish Defence League.
On July 2, 2014, 21-year-old Andrew Steele, who threatened to burn down the central mosque in Edinburgh, was fined for 200 pounds and received an order to study history books . In June, Declan McCuish was sentenced to 12 months in prison for xenophobic tweets against a black football player. On July 2, Princess Theodora Sayn-Wittgenstein was sentenced by the Dundee sheriff court to a fine of 1 000 GBP for Islamophobic threats at the Oktoberfest party at the University of St Andrews. On July 4th a 45-year-old man has been given a 12-month sentence by Cardiff Crown Court for a racially motivated assault on a local shop owner in Pontymister, Wales. Mark Williams also caused over £3,000 worth of damage to the shop, the court heard. On July 4, court banned a Christian doctor from talking about faith at work, after the allegations of abuse and discrimination made by a Muslim junior staff member. On July 25, a police officer was found guilty of assaulting and abusing mentally ill Somali man in March of last year. Sargent Charles Pilbeam was given a two-year suspended sentence by Westminster Magistrates' Court.
On August 27, 2014, a man who drew anti-Semitic graffiti on his neighbour’s door was sentenced to 6 months correctional labour.
On September 5, 2014, two men who were trying to mail a bomb and racist letters to lawyers from prison received several additional years to their sentences. On September 18, two teenagers from Manchester were fined for desecrating a local Jewish cemetery in June. On September 21, Tottenham FC player Benoît Assou-Ekotto was disqualified for three matches and fined 50 000 pounds for a series of tweets, supporting Nicolas Anelka – a football player who publically demonstrated an anti-Semitic gesture, “quenelle”.
On October 20, 2014, Liverpool Magistrates Court sentenced a 21 year old nationalist to one month in prison for sending anti-Semitic tweets to Luciani Bergeg MP. On October 31, a man in Glasgow was sentenced to 250 hours community labour for assaulting a Muslim woman at a supermarket.
On November 2, 2014, Mr Campbell, 42, was sentenced to five months in prison for threatening to burn down a bus of Jewish women and children . On November 25, Guy Wallace, 20, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for unleashing a German shepherd and Staffordshire bull terrier on a Muslim taxi driver.
On December 13, 2014, Lee Joshua and his fellow supporters of the English Defence League – Jake Hill, James Harrington and Adam Bibi – were sentenced to 1 to 2 years in prison for racist actions during the Birmingham riots in July 2013. On December 21, it was reported that Liverpool FC player Mario Balotelli was disqualified for one match, fined £25 000 and sent for compulsory educational courses for posting xenophobic tweets.
On December 31, 2014, owner of the Wigan FC Dave Whelan was fined £50 000 for racist comments against Jewish and Chinese people. He was also ordered to take part in a corresponding educational programme.
Also, the implementation of educational programs for British police officers involved in the fight against racism and hate crimes should be noted. In February 2016, representatives of the London police said that the program would be experimental and its goal was to help officers overcome racial prejudices. It is expected that 32,000 police officers will be trained how to identify signs of their own prejudices, in particular when conducting random checks of documents and detaining suspicious persons.
This was preceded by the publication of the results of the investigation of the British "Movement of the Nomads", which revealed that every fifth policemen check of documents is carried out against representatives of this small community.
In 2018-19, there was an increase in sentences handed down by the U.K. court for hate crimes. In 2017-18, there was a 13.6% increase in the number of cases in which sentences were ``revoked. There was a 13.6% increase in cases in which sentences were ``revoked'' (from 53.5% to 67.1%) and a 12.5% increase in the following cases (2018- 2019) reporting period (from 67.1% to 73.6%). This was a result of continued efforts to meet the 55% goal set in 2016. However, a deeper look at the data for the current reporting period reveals a more mixed picture. During the reporting period, the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saw a 12.5% drop in the number of decisions to file preliminary hate crime charges in 2018-2019, and a 9.3% drop in the number of completed cases that contained a hate crime element compared to the 2017-2018 reporting period. CPS attributed the drop mainly to a more general decline in the "number of suspects referred to us by police for a charging decision"; something the organization researches.Finally, in terms of prosecution rates compared to total hate crimes, the picture gets even bleaker, from a quarter to just under ten percent over the reporting period. The overall percentage of convictions versus nonconvictions, however, remained unchanged (84.7 percent in 2017-18 and 84.3 percent in 2018-2019), with a slight increase in guilty pleas (up 0.7 percent).
The United Kingdom has robust procedures for identifying those on the path to radicalization and other measures related to banning terrorist organizations. As part of the U.K. government's CONTEST counterterrorism strategy, Project Channel's Prevent program provides a multisectoral response to individuals involved. Participation in the Channel program is voluntary, and individuals are often paired with a mentor as well as mental health, employment and housing experts to provide a holistic solution to extremism, not only against the ideological basis of their extremist activity, but also against the social, economic and psychological factors that influenced their choice to follow a particular radical path.
In addition, there are nongovernmental deradicalization programs (such as EXIT UK) run largely by former extremists who provide training, education and mentoring. Prevent has been widely criticized for stigmatizing the Muslim community and has recently been independently audited. Despite the public debate showing Prevent's "brand" toxicity, opinion polls actually show strong support for the program (58 percent in 2020), and international organizations often cite it as the gold standard in government programs to prevent violent extremist-related activities.
Moreover, as Channel shows, radical right-wing extremism has overtaken Islamist extremism as one of the "fastest-growing problems" for counterterrorism officials in the UK. This has been demonstrated in several high-profile cases in which single activists and members of right-wing extremist groups have been caught in the planning stages of terrorist attacks. This has given the U.K. a notorious reputation as the country with the highest number of right-wing extremist terrorist attacks in Europe in 2019, according to Europol.
