Supplementary submission from the Commission
for Racial Equality
Thank you for your letter dated 21 October which
has been passed to the Legal Policy Team for a reply.
First, may I correct the information provided
in our submission to the Select Committee: the statistics supplied
to us by the Lord Chancellor's Department show that, for the period
1988-2001, there were 70 consent applications to the Attorney-General
and not 61. I apologise for any inconvenience, which this error
may have caused.
Based on the figures before us, the outcomes
on those 70 applications were are follows:
| Withdrawn | 3
|
| Not Granted | 6 |
| Prosecuted | 61 |
| Convicted | 42 |
As mentioned above, these figures were supplied by the Lord
Chancellor's Department and were not collected by the Commission.
We did ask for a breakdown of the racial origin of the Defendants
but were advised that such data is not recorded.
The Commission has no statutory powers to deal with incitement
to racial hatred and such complaints that are referred to us are
done so randomly. We are not able therefore to provide accurate
information on trends, but based on the complaints which we do
receive, it is our perception that there has been a general increase
in anti asylum seeker material and, since September 11, an increase
in anti Muslim material.
29 October 2002
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