RACE issues dominate the number of hate crimes in Britain's biggest county, new figures have revealed.

Some 76 per cent of hate crimes reported to police in North Yorkshire over the past five years have involved race - far outweighing all other forms.

They range from people having racist abuse shouted at them in public places, having racist terms scratched into the paintwork of cars, racist graffiti written on walls and instances of criminal damage to business premises such as smashed windows.

The LGBT community was the next most reported target of hate crime, making up 12.4 per cent of reports, followed by disability hate crime being 5.8 per cent of reports and religious hate crime being 5.3 per cent of reports.

The number of hate crime reports in the county has increased year-on-year since 2012 and year to date figures for 2017 have seen 282 reports being made.

The force's lead on hate crime, Superintendent Mark Khan, said: “Rather than the year-on-year increase in reports being indicative of instances of hate crimes increasing in number, the rise in the number of reports reflects the growing confidence of victims to no longer accept this intolerable behaviour and to come forward to the police.

“However, we recognise that there is lot more to do to encourage victims and witnesses to come forward and make that report.

"With the population of North Yorkshire being approximately 810,000 and the fact that over the past five years police have received 1,458 reports in total - we know that hate crime is a massively underreported crime."

Supt Khan added: “We need to continue to ensure the spotlight is shone on all the strands of hate crime and ensure victims know that they do not have to live with this abuse.

"They can approach the police or organisations such as Stop Hate UK, True Vision or Supporting Victims in North Yorkshire to report it and receive support."

  • The figures have been released as part of National Hate Crime Awareness Week and details of the organisations who can offer assistance to victims and witnesses of hate crime can be found at northyorkshire.police.uk or by going to stophateuk.org/ or True Vision at report-it.org.uk/home or supportingvictims.org/