POLICE in Cumbria are dealing with more religious hate crime, following a rise in offences after recent terrorist attacks and the EU referendum, official figures show.
The latest Home Office data shows a 340 per cent increase in the number of hate crime reported to the police, where religion is a motivating factor.
Between April 2017 and March 2018, 44 incidents were recorded by Cumbria Police, up from 10 the previous year.
In Cumbria, the total number of recorded hate crime incidents has more than doubled over the last five years.
This is partly because of improvements in the way crimes are recorded, but there have been spikes after events such as the Brexit referendum and the terrorist attacks.
The majority of hate crime reported to Cumbria Police were racist incidents. They increased by 33 per cent compared with the previous year, with 263 cases recorded by officers in 2017-18.
The number of incidents where disability was a motivating factor, rose slightly from 51 to 57.
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