We are proud to be supporting National Hate Crime Awareness Week.
A hate crime is defined as any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice.
We recognise that some of our customers may experience issues with hate crime in our communities, so addressing this challenge is important to us.
Hate crimes are any crimes that are targeted at a person because of: disability, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation and transgender identity.
A bias incident is different from a hate crime in that it does not necessarily involve criminal activity. Examples include graffiti, verbal abuse, and distribution of hate group literature.
This means that if you believe something is a hate incident it should be recorded as such by the person you are reporting it to.
Anyone can be the victim of a hate incident so we would like to help support our customers if they’re experiencing this.
Enforcement Team Leader for LiveWest, Michelle Kent, said: “I think people when they hear the word hate crime, think of racism.
“People who use some of the words we’re seeing, to do with antisocial behaviour, are completely inappropriate. When we challenge people on it, they say, ‘well, I don't see anything wrong with that’.
“If someone is saying it’s hate-motivated, we have to accept that it is and a duty to investigate it.
“We want people to reach out and we want to raise people's awareness of the fact that we're here to help.
“We're not going to prejudice we want people to reach out to let us know. Sometimes it's not obvious when it's hate-related but the actions of someone could be, but we do also want to manage expectations as well.”
If people are looking for support with a hate incident, charity SARI: Stand Against Racism and Equality can give people further advice.
Our website offers useful self-help information and links to further support, which other customers have found useful.
Regional Manager for Neighbourhoods for LiveWest, Julie Bingham, said: “We've got people out there that are struggling that we can't reach because we don't know it’s happening. If they're coming to us, we're probably not going to fall down that hole, but it's those people that aren't necessarily coming forward.
“So that's one of the reasons that the Enforcement team are there, and they are able to give that more direct support to people because they're more of our experts on this type of thing.
“We have now got the Enforcement Duty Line, where we're able to give advice and support. To promote some of that, and to make sure that the enforcement team are aware of the fact that, we've advised that if somebody wants to speak to someone confidentially about hate, then actually we've got that avenue open for them.”
“If you believe you are the victim of a hate crime, as well as reporting it to LiveWest, you should report it to the police on 999 if it's an emergency or 101 if it’s not.”