Written question asked by James Clappison (Conservative) on Tuesday, 13 May 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 15 May 2008. It was answered by Lord Coaker (Labour) on Tuesday, 20 May 2008 on behalf of the Home Office.

Religious Hatred

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) religiously aggravated offences and (b) offences of religious harassment were recorded in each year since the introduction of such offences, broken down by the religion of the victim; and how many resulted in a (i) charge and (ii) conviction.

Answer: The information requested is not collected centrally. The Home Office collects statistics on recorded racially or religiously aggravated offences for some specific categories of offence. However, it is not possible to determine (a) whether an offence was of a racial or religious nature or (b) the religion of the victim. Similarly, the religion of the victim cannot be identified from the courts proceedings data collected by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform.

Secondary information