Successful prosecution in Rugby
A 56-year old defendant from Rugby has been sentenced for racially abusing two people including a police officer.
Read more...Hate related crime in train stations has doubled in some of parts of the country and EQuIP are supporting transports providers to tackle the issue in Warwickshire.
Hate crime and incidents have increased year-on-year in Warwickshire and reports from people experiencing and witnessing hate crime at train and bus stations have become more common.
People have also raised issues around the use of taxis services, with reports of people being targeted while waiting for a taxis and taxis drivers themselves are sometimes targeted.
Nationally, train stations are experiencing huge problems with hate crime taking place at train stations and within actual train journeys.
London has experienced the greatest number of reports. According to the Evening Standard, Racist offences on Transport for London's (TfL) rail network have doubled in the space of four years.
Rose Simkins, chief executive of Stop Hate UK, told the Evening Standard that tensions surrounding Brexit tensions could be partly to blame for the spike in racially and religiously aggravated offences on the Tube and other rail services in the capital.
She said: “Language is really important in not fuelling this."
British Transport Police (BTP) data obtained by the Evening Standard under the Freedom of Information Act showed that in 2018/19, there were 1,143 reported offences on the Tube, Overground, Docklands Light Railway (DLR), TfL Rail and Tramlink.
Hate related crime in train stations has doubled in some of parts of the country and EQuIP are supporting transports providers to tackle the issue in Warwickshire.
Hate crime and incidents have increased year-on-year in Warwickshire and reports from people experiencing and witnessing hate crime at train and bus stations have become more common.
People have also raised issues around the use of taxis services, with reports of people being targeted while waiting for a taxis and taxis drivers themselves are sometimes targeted.
Nationally, train stations are experiencing huge problems with hate crime taking place at train stations and within actual train journeys.
London has experienced the greatest number of reports. According to the Evening Standard, Racist offences on Transport for London's (TfL) rail network have doubled in the space of four years.
Rose Simkins, chief executive of Stop Hate UK, told the Evening Standard that tensions surrounding Brexit tensions could be partly to blame for the spike in racially and religiously aggravated offences on the Tube and other rail services in the capital.
She said: “Language is really important in not fuelling this."
British Transport Police (BTP) data obtained by the Evening Standard under the Freedom of Information Act showed that in 2018/19, there were 1,143 reported offences on the Tube, Overground, Docklands Light Railway (DLR), TfL Rail and Tramlink.
In Warwickshire, numbers of hate crime are much lower than London, but the increase in reports from people experiencing or witnessing hate crime in transport settings is concerning.
Warwickshire Police figures suggest that people across all five districts and boroughs of the county have experienced hate related crimes in 2019. The official police data highlights an even spread of cases in the north and south of the county.
The Warwickshire Hate Crime Partnership, which consists of all relevant agencies and organisations that work to together in the interest of community safety and tackling hate crime, wish to highlight their concern of hate crime taking place in transport.
EQuIP, a local charity is one of the many partners that form the Warwickshire Hate Crime Partnership and they have developed a Hate Crime Charter (HCC) to support organisations and their staff to identify and report hate crime.
Fully supported by Warwickshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Warwickshire Police and Warwickshire County Council, the HCC is being offered to all transport providers as way of supporting them to tackle the issues that hate crime can bring.
Benji Evans from EQuIP commented ‘People should access transport services without fear of being a victim of hate crime. EQuIP have developed a Hate Crime Charter which provides hate crime awareness training for staff working in the transport sector and it also provides useful branded resources that can transport organisations or small taxis business can display displayed in areas where members of the public wait for transport (i.e. bus stops, train stations. Taxis ranks), in vehicles or located in staff rooms so staff are reminded about the importance of reporting hate crime.
Evans continued to add ‘The increase in hate crimes show that people are starting to come forward and report hate crime that they experience or witness and this is great for us to understand the issues and we tackle them going forward. There is still a huge issue of underreporting of hate crime in society, so we would like to remind people that you can report, directly to the police or if you prefer to keep your identify completely confidential, you can always contact EQuIP’.
There are various ways to report depending on how much information people wish to give. You can ring the Police by calling 101 in a non-emergency situation, but always call 999 in an emergency.
In Warwickshire, some people do not wish to contact the police directly, so they can report hate crimes/incidents to EQuIP, who will protect a persons identity and not pass on any details of the report without prior consent.
Reports to EQuIP can be made online via the www.reporthatenow.com website, you can send an email: advice@equipequality.org.uk, or for those that prefer to speak to someone in person, you can contact telephone EQuIP on 01788 863117 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm).