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CPS North East - Hate Crime Sentence Uplifts - July 2022

|News, Hate crime

Under hate crime legislation the courts must pass increased sentences where prosecutors 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 convicted of racially aggravated threatening behaviour towards a shop security guard. He was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment. The court announced that it had uplifted the sentence by increasing the length of sentence by two weeks to reflect the racial aggravation. 

The defendant was convicted of racially aggravated intentional harassment after he racially abused a door supervisor. He was sentenced to a fine of £441 and ordered to pay compensation in the sum of £150 to the door supervisor. The court announced it had uplifted the sentence by increasing the fine to reflect the racial aggravation. 

The defendant was convicted of racially aggravated intentional harassment alarm distress and of assaulting police officers after he racially abused an arresting officer and assaulted two others during arrest. He was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, suspended for 24 months, with rehabilitation activities and ordered to pay compensation to the officers in the sum of £100 each. The court announced that they had uplifted the sentence from a community order to custody to reflect the racial aggravation. 

The defendant, a youth, was convicted of homophobic public order after he used homophobic hostility towards a neighbour. He was sentenced to a conditional discharge for twelve months. The court announced that the sentence had been uplifted by increasing the length of the discharge to reflect the homophobic nature of the offence.

The defendant was convicted of disability aggravated intentional harassment alarm distress after she was abusive to her disabled neighbours, using disablist language. She was sentenced to a fine of £300 and ordered to pay compensation in the sum of £200 to each victim. The court announced it had uplifted the sentence by increasing the fine to reflect the disablist aggravation.

The defendant was convicted of racially aggravated intentional harassment towards arresting officers after he was arrested for criminal damage to a public toilet window. He was sentenced to a twelve-month community order with unpaid work and rehabilitation activities. Compensation was ordered to be paid for the broken window and £100 to each officer. The court indicated they had uplifted the sentence from a fine to a community order to reflect the racist nature of the offence. 

The defendant was convicted of racially aggravated intentional harassment alarm distress after a road rage incident, where the defendant beeped his horn, got out of his vehicle, approached the victim, banged on her window, and used racist abuse towards her, also trying the door of the car. He was sentenced to a fine of £1000 and ordered to pay compensation to the victim in the sum of £100. The court announced that it had uplifted the sentence by increasing the fine to reflect the racist aggravation.

The defendant, a youth, was convicted of racially aggravated intentional harassment alarm distress and of criminal damage after he ran amok in a supermarket damaging infrastructure and breaking bottles of lager. Upon arrest he was racially abusive to officers.  He was sentenced to a four-month referral order. The court announced that it had uplifted the sentence to reflect the hate abuse by increasing the length of the referral order.

The defendant was convicted of racially aggravated harassment after she embarked upon a campaign of racist harassment towards her neighbours. She was sentenced to twelve weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for twelve months and ordered to pay the victims a total of £500 compensation. The court announced it had uplifted the sentence by increasing the term of imprisonment to reflect the racial aggravation.
 

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