Evening Standard
· collected 2026-10-08 · by Y. Áine Fox
Police-recorded religious and race hate crimes in England and Wales reached record highs, with religious hate crimes rising by 13% to 11,419 offences and race hate crimes increasing by 9% to 107,926. The highest annual total of religious hate crimes targeting Muslims was recorded at 5,132, marking a significant rise from the previous year. Additionally, there were 90,378 race hate crime offences documented. Notably, these statistics show spikes in hate crimes following specific events like protests, public disorder, and international conflicts such as the US war with Iran and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-08,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Story summary
In England and Wales, police-recorded religious and race hate crimes hit a record high in the year ending March 2025. Religious hate crimes rose by 13% from 10,067 to 11,419 offences, while race hate crimes increased to 107,926, marking an 9% rise from the previous year's total of 98,890. Excluding data from the Metropolitan Police Service (Met), there were 123,957 hate crimes recorded in total, up 7% from the prior year’s count of 116,000. Religious hate crimes targeting Muslims increased by 15%, rising from 4,479 to 5,132, reaching their highest annual level since records began in the year ending March 2018. The Government-funded British Muslim Trust (BMT) reported tracking and verifying 78 attacks and incidents at Muslim places of worship between July 2024 and July 2025, including vandalism and intimidation.
Written for “Hate Crimes Record High” on 2026-10-08,
grounded in this article and the 1 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
The model judged this article politically coded and scored it -0.45, but all 2 of its quote(s) are attributed speech - words the article quotes from someone, not the article's own narration, so the score is not published.
Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph
rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.
Leaning score withheld for article 65330: attributed speech only · logged 2026-10-08
Religious hate crime rose by 13% from 10,067 to 11,419 offences, while race hate crimes once again made up the majority, at 107,926 offences, which was a rise of 9% from 98,890 the previous year.
asserted
which → rise → 98,890
Read More
Excluding the MPS, there were 8,214 religious hate crime offences recorded in England and Wales in the 12 months to March – the highest annual total since records began in the year ending March 2012.
asserted
records → read → year
There were 90,378 race hate crime offences recorded in the latest year excluding the Met, which was also a record high since 2012.
asserted
which → be → 2012
Religious hate crimes targeting Muslims increased by 15% from 4,479 to 5,132, while crimes against Jews were up by 10% year-on-year from 2,874 to 3,162.
Sharp jumps in offences against Muslims occurred in September 2025, which the Home Office said coincided with protests and public disorder, and then in March following the US going to war with Iran.
asserted
US → target → Iran
Not counting Met data, hate crimes against Muslims rose to 3,660, which is their highest annual level since this data was first collected in the year to March 2018.
Meanwhile, the Government-funded British Muslim Trust (BMT) said it has tracked and verified 78 attacks and incidents at Muslim places of worship in the 12 months to July, including vandalism and intimidation.
asserted
it → count → vandalism
The trust, in its report published on Thursday, said this averages around one attack every five days in the UK and Channel Islands.
asserted
this → publish → UK
The latest Home Office data covers the period when Peacehaven Mosque in East Sussex was subject to an arson attack in October 2025 and an incident where bacon was left at a mosque in Bristol during Friday prayers in the first week of Ramadan in February.
asserted
bacon → cover → February
BMT chief executive Akeela Ahmed said: “The rising tide of hatred in this country requires a whole society response.
asserted
tide → say → response
“Politicians and those with the loudest voices need to take greater care in what they say, social media platforms have to do more to tackle hate, the authorities must act quickly and decisively, and the rest of us must rebuild the social norms that make clear any form of hatred and prejudice is not acceptable and it is not British.
asserted
it → need → hatred
”
Hate crimes against Jewish people were, when data from the Met was excluded, at their second highest level on record.
asserted
data → exclude → record
There were 2,003 offences in the latest year, not counting the Met, which was just below the 2,093 record high in the year ending March 2024 – which covered the months after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and subsequent war in Gaza.
asserted
which → be → Gaza
The Home Office said hate crimes against Jewish people spiked in October 2025 “following a series of antisemitic crimes after the Heaton Park Synagogue terror attack and have been at an elevated level since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict”.
asserted
crimes → say → conflict
Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed when Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, drove into the gates of the Heaton Park Synagogue on October 2 last year, and began attacking with a knife while wearing a fake suicide belt.
asserted
Shamie → kill → belt
A series of antisemitic attacks followed in the months after, including in March this year when four Jewish community ambulances were torched in Golders Green, north London.
asserted
ambulances → follow → Green
The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism and publishes its own data on attacks, said the latest figures “show that antisemitic hate crime remains at an unacceptably high level”.
asserted
crime → monitor → level
There is an “an urgent need to reduce the amount of incitement connected to conflict overseas”, the CST said, adding that “much more needs to be done across society to tackle this problem”.
asserted
CST → be → problem
Elsewhere, the Home Office data showed falls in hate crimes against people because of their sexual orientation by 1% from 21,527 to 21,407, disability hate crimes by 5% from 10,649 to 10,140, and transgender hate crimes by 4% from 4,120 to 3,955.
asserted
data → show → 3,955
The Aporia
