CPS North East - Hate Crime Sentence Uplifts - November 2022

Under hate crime legislation the courts must pass increased sentences where prosecutors show evidence that offences either demonstrate or have been motivated by hostility towards a person’s race, religion, disability, transgender identity or sexuality. Below are examples of hate crime cases recently prosecuted by CPS North East, each of which resulted in a conviction and an uplifted sentence.

The defendant was sentenced for a racially aggravated s.4a Public Order offence after racially abusing a police officer who had sought to get him medical attention. The defendant received an immediate custodial sentence of 12 weeks. The court announced the sentence would have been one of 8 weeks, but they had imposed a 4-week uplift for the racially aggravated element.

Defendant has sexually assaulted and been racially abusive to the victim whilst in a takeaway. The defendant in interview denied the sexual assault and whilst accepting the use of the racist language, said it was not racist as he was of the same skin colour as the victim. On the day of trial, the defendant offered to plead guilty to the sexual assault charge and invited the CPS to take a view on the racially aggravated public order offence. This was refused by the CPS and the defendant in the end pleaded guilty to both the sexual assault and the racially aggravated public order offence. The defendant would have received a medium-level community order but due to the hate crime element received a high-level community order. He was also ordered to pay compensation to the victim.

The defendant was arrested for an unrelated matter and during the course of his arrest he assaulted the police officer whilst repeatedly making homophobic slurs towards him. The defendant received a 12-month community order which included 80 hours unpaid work. The sentence would have been one of 40 hours unpaid work but was doubled to 80 hours due to the hate crime element.

The defendant and victim were neighbours, and the defendant made very unpleasant comments about his neighbour’s son disability. The defendant accepted making comments but said none were about his neighbour’s son's disability. However, he was convicted after trial of the public order offence where the court found he had made the disability hate crime comments. The defendant is due to be sentenced on 8th December 2022

The defendant was convicted after trial after subjecting a taxi driver to religiously motivated hate crime before going on to damage the victim’s taxi. The defendant is due to be sentenced before Christmas where the trial judge indicated the defendant is facing a custodial sentence and asked for the sentencing to be reserved to her.