THE number of hate crimes police recorded in England and Wales have hit a record high, according to figures published today.

Home Office data shows that 105,090 hate crimes were recorded in 2019-20, an 8 per cent rise on 2018-19, and is the highest number since records began nine years ago.

Race hate crimes accounted for 72 per cent (76,070) of alleged offences, rising by 6 per cent in a year.

A separate Home Office report, looking at trends during the coronavirus pandemic, warned that rises in reports of racially or religiously aggravated hate crime in June were a third higher than the previous year and remained high in July. 

It said this is “likely to be related to the Black Lives Matter protests and far-right groups’ counterprotests.”

It came as charity Victim Support reported a 62 per cent increase in the number of people being referred for help in July and August, adding that intimidating behaviour from neighbours had fuelled the “extremely concerning” rise.

The Home Office attributed the rise in reported hate crime over the last five years to improvements in crime recording by the police, but added that there had been spikes in reports following events such as the EU referendum and the 2017 terror attacks.

The figures do not include Greater Manchester Police reports. The force is still unable to supply data due to a computer glitch when installing new software last year.

Religious hate crime fell by 5 per cent, from a peak of 7,203 the previous year, the first drop since 2012-13.

But the Sikh Federation (UK) has said that “more than 95 per cent of Sikh hate crimes being reported to the police appear not to be showing up in police records.

“Some of these no doubt may have been incorrectly recorded as Islamophobic and others lost somewhere in the system.”

Federation chairman Bhai Amrik Singh said: “Sikhs are invisible and ignored by the government when it comes to hate crime.”

According to Home Office figures, hate crime motivated by sexual orientation rose by 19 per cent in 2019-20 to 15,835.

Transgender identity hate crime went up 16 per cent to 2,540 reports, its highest level since records began in 2011-12.

Disability hate crime increased by 9 per cent from 7,786 to 8,469, also a record high.

Shadow home office minister Bambos Charalambous said: “It’s unacceptable that communities are being targeted based on their ethnicity, faith or who they love.”

“There is so much more the government could do to help tackle the scourge, [or else] we risk continuing to fail victims of this vile crime.”