A NEW study has suggested more needs to be done in Bradford to tackle hate crime, as some victims feel it is a normal part of their life.

A review into hate crime in the district has been carried out by a panel of Bradford Councillors, and raises some worrying issues.

It found that between 2016 and 2020 hate crime targeting people because of a disability had tripled, and hate crime relating to a person's sexual orientation had doubled.

But the report says it is likely that hate crime incidents are underreported, particularly among communities such as Roma and South Asian women.

It makes a number of recommendations, including work in school to educate children about the impact of hate crime and better training for workers who minority groups would access for support.

The review will go before a full meeting of Bradford Council this Summer, when its authors hope it will be adopted as official Council policy.

The Hate Crime Scrutiny Review was carried out by members of the Council's Corporate Scrutiny Committee.

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Members spoke to numerous groups, including victims of hate crime, representatives from different religious groups, disabled residents, representatives of different ethnic groups and members of the LGBT community.

The definition of hate crime used by the Crown Prosecution Service is any criminal offence perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on person’s race, perceived race, religion, perceived religion, sexual orientation, perceived sexual orientation, transgender, perceived transgender, disability or perceived disability.

There is currently a Bradford Hate Crime Alliance that helps tackle the issue, and there are 28 centres across the District where people can report hate crimes.

The scrutiny review found that West Yorkshire Police had recorded an increase in hate crime since 2016. In that year there were 1,415 recorded incidents.

By 2020 that figure had risen to 2,043.

The most significant rise was seen in hate crimes against people with disabilities. In 2016 there were 53 incidents recorded. Last year there were 157 recorded incidents.

The review suggests the setting up of a specific group to deal with disability hate crimes.

It says: "In conversations with Disabled groups, Councillors heard that if an individual had experienced Hate Crime, they would just treat this as part of their life. The Committee were very concerned to hear this, as this a particularly vulnerable group and this group needed specific and targeted support, through the setting up of a Disability Hate Crime Group."

In 2016 there were 124 reported hate crimes relating to sexual orientation. Last year this had risen to 240.

The review found that often when people from the LGBT community report hate crimes, they feel ignored, or that people are not educated on what hate crime against the community is.

It says: "During the information gathering session with the LGBTQ+ community, it was felt when they reported Hate Crime, the individuals who are responsible for receiving the Hate Crime reports often needed to be educated, particularly on areas such as the use of language."

Between 2016 and 2020 the number of race related hate crimes increased from 1,153 to 1,550, and the number of faith hate crimes increased from 82 to 108.

Hate crimes against transgender people fell from 51 to 30.

The report adds: "A consistent theme was that there was a lot of under reporting of Hate Crime across the District.

"Several contributions, but particularly the victims of Hate Crime revealed that new and emerging communities such as Roma and travelling communities didn’t know where to report Hate Crime.

"As well as this, representatives from the Bradford Hate Crime Alliance also stated that there was a lot of under reporting amongst South Asian women, with cultural barriers being a contributory factor here."

After speaking with representatives of different groups, the Committee found: "one of the reasons why there was under reporting of Hate Crime across the District was that individuals did not think that if they reported Hate Crime, it will be treated seriously."

Recommendations include better training for staff at hate crime reporting centres, a campaign to raise awareness of what hate crime, developing a disability hate crime group and more work in schools to tackle hate crime.

The committee met on Tuesday and agreed that the review should go before a full meeting of Bradford Council this summer so the recommendations could be adopted.