Ukip leader Paul Nuttall claims soaring hate crime figures are "fabricated"
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Shameless Ukip leader Paul Nuttall has claimed soaring hate crime figures are "fabricated".
Analysis today revealed three quarters of police forces saw record hate crime in the three months after the Brexit vote.
The analysis, based on Home Office figures from July to September 2016, was by the respected Press Association news agency.
Yet Mr Nuttall claims "a lot of this" has been "overblown to try and rubbish Brexit ".
He told the Independent: "A lot of that [rise] is fabricated. In fact, we’ve got a paper coming out, specifically focused on London and the hate crime spike.
Scroll down for figures from your area
(Photo: PA)
"What the police said is there tends to be a rise in these types of crime after any national event and then it tails off. I’m not sure I buy into [the rise in hate crimes]."
He added: "Of course there will be individual instances and people should never be victims of hate crime at all.
"My heart goes out to those people who have been victims, but I think a lot of this has been overblown specifically to try to rubbish Brexit ."
Mr Nuttall's comments - amid a storm over false claims on his website about losing "close friends" in the Hillsborough disaster - prompted immediate anger.
Campaign group Hope Not Hate branded the comments "crass in the extreme".
Labour shadow minister Angela Rayner added: "The only thing 'fabricated' are the UKIP leaders false and exaggerated claims on a whole range of issues."
(Photo: Daily Mirror)
The Press Association analysis showed the number of incidents in some areas jumped by more than 50% in the three months ending September 2016.
Overall, 33 out of 44 forces recorded the highest quarterly number of hate crimes since comparable records began in April 2012.
Three forces each recorded more than 1,000 hate crimes - the Metropolitan Police (3,356), Greater Manchester (1,033) and West Yorkshire (1,013).
Only four forces reported a decrease on the previous three months.
The area with the biggest Leave vote, Lincolnshire, saw hate crimes jump by 59%.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the findings suggested a small number of people used the Brexit vote "to legitimise inexcusable racism and prejudice", while the charity Victim Support said that more needed to be done to encourage victims to come forward.
The analysis was based on provisional figures on hate crimes published by the Home Office in October 2016, which suggested offences in July 2016 were 41% higher than in July 2015.
Did hate crime rise in your area?
(Photo: Getty)
Here are the number of hate crime offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales in July-September 2016.
They are ranked according to the size of the change compared with April-June 2016, which is the figure shown in brackets.
An asterisk denotes that it was the highest quarterly figure since comparable records began in April 2012.
:: Dorset 104* (up 100%)
:: Nottinghamshire 189* (up 75%)
:: North Yorkshire 64* (up 68%)
:: West Mercia 247* (up 64%)
:: Devon and Cornwall 220* (up 63%)
:: Leicestershire 213* (up 60%)
:: Kent 277* (up 60%)
:: Lincolnshire 78* (up 59%)
:: Humberside 140* (up 57%)
:: Dyfed-Powys 35* (up 52%)
:: Northumbria 394* (up 48%)
:: West Yorkshire 1,013* (up 46%)
:: Essex 376* (up 41%)
:: Wiltshire 134* (up 38%)
:: Suffolk 123* (up 37%)
:: British Transport Police 620* (up 34%)
:: Hampshire 463* (up 33%)
:: Sussex 385* (up 32%)
:: Hertfordshire 266* (up 30%)
:: Cleveland 159* (up 29%)
:: West Midlands 923* (up 27%)
:: Norfolk 130* (up 25%)
:: Gwent 77 (up 22%)
:: North Wales 56 (up 22%)
:: Lancashire 128 (up 21%)
:: Metropolitan Police 3,356* (up 20%)
:: Thames Valley 286* (up 20%)
:: Avon and Somerset 449* (up 19%)
:: Merseyside 477* (up 19%)
:: Greater Manchester 1,033* (up 19%)
:: Cheshire 195* (up 18%)
:: Durham 66 (up 16%)
:: Cumbria 50 (up 14%)
:: South Wales 276* (up 10%)
:: Cambridgeshire 179* (up 9%)
:: Derbyshire 117 (up 8%)
:: Staffordshire 237* (up 6%)
:: Warwickshire 106* (up 6%)
:: Bedfordshire 133* (up 6%)
:: Northamptonshire 79 (up 4%)
:: South Yorkshire 225 (down 1%)
:: Gloucestershire 55 (down 4%)
:: Surrey 137 (down 7%)
:: City of London 25 (down 7%)
:: Total: 14,295* (up 27%)
Note: Police forces in England and Wales can class five types of racially or religiously aggravated offences as hate crimes: assault with injury; assault without injury; harassment; public fear, alarm or distress; and other criminal damage. These categories are defined by statute, and have been used to compile the figures listed above, based on police force open data. Forces can decide to identify other types of offences as hate crimes, however, meaning the overall total could be higher.