Hawzah News Agency - New statistics have revealed that there were 3,530 hate crimes against Muslims in England and Wales in the last year, which represents nearly half of all hate crimes against religious groups.

In total, there were 103,379 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2018/19, an increase of ten per cent compared with 2017/18.

The majority of hate crimes were race hate crimes, accounting for around three-quarters of offences (78,991 offences). These increased by 11 per cent between 2017/18 and 2018/19.

Religious hate crimes increased by three per cent (to 8,566 offences); sexual orientation hate crimes increased 25 per cent (to 14,491); disability hate crimes by 14 per cent (to 8,256); and transgender identity hate crimes by 37 per cent (to 2,333).

Just under half (47%) of religious hate crime offences were targeted against Muslims, a similar proportion to last year. A further 18% religious hate crime offences were targeted against Jewish people (1,326 offences).

Around twelve per cent of hate crime offences in 2018/19 were estimated to have involved more than one motivating factor, the majority of these were hate crimes related to both race and religion.

Over half (54%) of the hate crimes recorded by the police were for public order offences and a further third (36%) were for violence against the person offences. Five per cent were recorded as criminal damage and arson offences.