More than 7,000 hate crimes logged in Scotland in first week of controversial new law

Scottish police received more than 7,000 online reports of hate crimes after controversial new law came into effect last week.

From the 7,152 complaints, Police Scotland recorded 240 as hate crimes – 3.3% of all reports – while 30 were logged as non-crime hate incidents, meaning they did not meet the threshold for a criminal offence.

Police said the vast majority of complaints were made anonymously.

Officers also dealt with 430 incidents in the first week where a hate crime tag was added for those submitting online reports.

Meanwhile there were 34 calls to either 101 or 999 relating to a hate crime and 141 emails sent to Police Scotland for the same purpose.

Nearly half of all the complaints made online were made on the first day, the figures showed, before the number of reports slowed later in the week.

Some 120 of the crimes reported had a racial aggravator attached, the figures showed, while 42 had an aggravator for sexual orientation, 38 for disability, 21 for both age and religion and eight for transgender identity.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance has said: “It is important when we look at the number of hate crimes recorded – 240 – by Police Scotland in one week alone, I think that demonstrates that this legislation is required and needed to protect marginalised and vulnerable communities most at risk of racial hatred and prejudice.”

Asked if she thought the legislation was an example of good law, the justice secretary said it was the product of “some really good cross-party collaboration” and was backed by 82 of Holyrood’s 129 MSPs.

Concerns had been raised ahead of the legislation being enforced of both the impact on free speech and the readiness of officers to deal with it.

JK Rowling, Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak have all criticised the law for infringing on free speech but Age Scotland claimed it could help "eradicate" abuse targeted towards marginalised communities.

Rohini Sharma Joshi, diversity and inclusions manager at Age Scotland, said: "It’s knowing that there’s something there to safeguard you. We also need to build confidence for communities to know they can report it and don’t have to accept this behaviour.

“We need to understand what we can do to ensure this hate is eradicated in Scotland."

According to a slideshow produced about the statistics released on Wednesday, more than four out of five (80.49%) of officers have undertaken the two-hour training course on the application of the legislation.

The justice secretary said she had been given “assurances on the high number of officers that have already received this important training”, as well as additional training that has been provided for staff in the contact, command and control centres.

A police spokesperson said they had seen "significant demand" on their contact centres but said the impact on their frontline policing has been "minimal."

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