Police Scotland has said only a small number of the thousands of reports lodged so far under Scotland’s controversial hate crime act were authentic.
The force released data showing 3.8% of the 7,152 complaints it received in the first week the hate crime act was in force were judged to be legitimate. Two hundred and forty complaints were logged as hate crimes and 30 as non-hate incidents.
The figures follow a bitter dispute over the justification for the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. It seeks to criminalise hatred towards minority and vulnerable groups, but has been dogged by mis-statements from ministers and misrepresentation by some of its critics.
Police Scotland said the vast majority of reports received during this period were anonymous and submitted online. “These were assessed against the new legislation and no further action is being taken,” it added.
The figures appear to substantiate warnings the police would be inundated with spurious complaints because of campaigns to undermine the act’s credibility.
Nearly half of the total number of online and anonymous reports that week were made on 1 April, at 3,419. The daily rate fell very sharply to just 180 reports on 6 April and 343 on 7 April.
In contrast, the number of complaints judged to be legitimate remained relatively constant at between 30 and 39 a day through the week. The force said the surge of complaints caused “minimal” impact on frontline policing and was dealt with by its call-handling centres and hate crime specialists.
The act consolidates existing hate crime laws and creates a new offence of “threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred” on the grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. It does not include misogyny, for which a separate bill is being drafted.
Using the definition of “hate crime aggravators”, it said the 120 race-related hate crime reports adjudged to meet the act’s tests represented a near doubling of the previous weekly average. Hate crimes recorded against people with disabilities more than quadrupled from an average of 8.4 to 38 in that week.
With the act including hates crimes against elderly people for the first time, it said 21 hate crime reports involving elderly people were recorded.
The data was released as one of Scotland’s most senior legal figures, Lord Hope, a former deputy president of the UK supreme court and lord justice general, attacked the act and said it should be repealed.
Hope told the Times the legislation placed an “extraordinary burden” on the police since they were required by law to investigate every complaint. He said it would be simpler to have amended the Public Order Act, adding these prejudices as aggravating factors in crimes.
“It’s an extraordinary position,” Hope said, “[and] it’s no wonder the police are being deluged in trying to carry it out.”
Angela Constance, the Scottish justice secretary, said the comparisons with previous years showed hate crime was not new, while the increase in substantiated reports this year showed the act was necessary.
The act “does not prevent people expressing controversial, challenging or offensive views”, she said. “[It] does however help to tackle the harm caused by hatred and prejudice, and provide greater protections for people in society and communities who face hatred just because of who they are – and we should all want that.”
Sharon Dowey, the Scottish Conservatives’ shadow justice spokesperson, said it was significant that 20% of police officers had still not been trained on how to enforce the act, even it though it was already in force. “These figures highlight the huge toll [the first minister] Humza Yousaf’s shambolic hate crime law is already having on Scotland’s overstretched police force,” she said.
