RACIAL and religious hate crime in Reading is growing year on year, police figures reveal.

Thames Valley Police have released a crime summary for the year 2019/2020, and when matched with previous years' reports, it shows that racist incidents are on the increase in the town.

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Data recording crimes in Reading from the past three years reveals that racial hate crime, including racist or religiously aggravated crime; racist incidents with or without crime and religious incidents with or without crime have all become more common.

Incidents recorded are based on reportings to the police, and include non-crime occurrences as well as crime occurrences.

Reading Chronicle:

In 2017/2018, 666 such incidents were reported to the force, while in 2018/2019 the figure rose to 786.

Recorded incidents for the most recent year, which spans from September 2019 - August 2020, increased once again to 890.

This shows a three year increase of 13 per cent.

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Racially or religiously aggravated crime was recorded in 132 cases in the 2017/2018 period, and this rose to 224 the following year and 251 for the period of 2019/2020.

Outcomes of incidents have also risen, with 69 outcomes recorded in 2017/2018, 70 in 2018/2019 and 101 in 2019/2020.