Greater Manchester Police say the number of hate crime reports they receive have increased since the Manchester Arena bombing.
There were 56 on Wednesday, compared to 28 reports on Monday, and Chief Constable Ian Hopkins says he is “monitoring the situation”.
“It is disappointing but it happens every time,” said Nazir Afzal, who heads the Police and Crime Commissioners Association.
“After Brussels, after Paris, after the murder in Westminster … There is a spike … That is sad that people are targeting a whole community just because of the action of criminals, and they are criminals. They don’t represent the community.”
He added: “Jo Cox’s murderer doesn’t represent the white community of this country, the KKK don’t represent Christianity.”
Afzal, who as Chief Crown Prosecutor for North-West England from 2011–15 was Britain’s most senior Muslim prosecutor, attracted criticism for his comments on the grooming gang scandal during his time in office.
He claimed the majority-white victims were targeted because of their vulnerability, not their race, and that the attackers were overwhelmingly Muslims of Pakistani origin because men from that background happened to be overrepresented in the “night-time economy”.
Breitbart London’s enquiries with New Scotland Yard following the Westminster attack revealed the reason hate crime reports – as opposed to confirmed and recorded crimes – seem to spike after terror incidents may well be because the police actively encourage people to come forward with allegations following so-called “trigger events”.
“Where we identify a possible trigger event that could result in more hate crime we instigate a community engagement plan to ensure those in communities who may be victims of hate crime know that we will not tolerate this kind of crime and that we encourage them to report this to the police,” they wrote in a statement.
It should also be noted that the definitions of what constitutes a “hate incident” are very broad. The College of Policing’s Hate Crime Operational Guidance manual outlines the standard procedure as follows:
“For recording purposes, the perception of the victim, or any other person, is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident … the victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception.
“Evidence … is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incident.”