London: The UK has witnessed a “horrible spike” in hate crimes in London following Britain’s referendum in favour of an exit from the European Union, Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said.
At a hearing at London's City Hall on Thursday, he said that hate crime was showing signs of decreasing after a sharp rise in June and July, but it had still not returned to pre-referendum levels.
“We saw this horrible spike after Brexit,” he said. While he stressed that the spike may not be “absolutely down to Brexit” but some of them were attributed to it because of what was said at the time.
He noted: “Eastern Europeans were particularly targeted within the race-hate crime (category). So there certainly was a spike related to it. We have fortunately seen it start to come back down, but I'm not sure we can say yet it is back to previous levels.”
According to the Guardian, data presented at the hearing by the London mayor’s evidence and insight team showed a 16 per cent increase in hate crime in the 12 months to August this year.
