Nationally, the police recorded 50,000 racially or religiously motivated hate crimes last year.

The British Crime Survey, which is based on interviews with a wide sample of people and picks up crimes that are not reported to police, indicated that there were 260,000 such offences last year.  For example: The Metropolitan Police alone reported 11,799 incidents of racist and religious hate crime and 1,359 incidents of homophobic hate crime in the 12 months to January 2006.

However, the police estimate that most racist and religious hate crime, and as much as 90% of homophobic crime, goes unreported (source: Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service) because victims are too frightened or embarrassed to let someone know.

The typical hate offender is a young white male (most homophobic offenders are aged 16-20, and most race hate offenders are under 30) who lives locally to the victim. The majority of hate crimes happen near to the victim's home while they are going about their daily business, and an offence is most likely to be committed between 3pm and midnight.

(Facts and figures extracted from www.homeoffice.gov.uk)