Hate crime and harassment

If you’re a victim of an incident where you were targeted because of your ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, age or disability, this can be described as a hate crime.

Defining hate crime and harassment

Hate crime can take many forms: verbal or physical abuse; property damage; or a targeted campaign intended to harm, intimidate or distress a person or group of people. They can often be the same as other anti-social behaviours except that they could be motivated by hate or prejudice.

Harassment can involve the same crimes, but the motivation for the perpetrator is different. Here, the issue is personal.

Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference between hate crimes and harassment, especially if the offender is hiding their motives. Regardless, we take reports of both extremely seriously.

Reporting hate crime and harassment

We understand that you may find it difficult to report a hate crime to us or the police. Sometimes perpetrators assume that hate crimes won’t be reported and take advantage.

Don’t worry about having evidence – you don’t have to prove that an incident was motivated by prejudice. If you or anyone else believes that it was, then we’ll deal with your issue as a hate crime.

MTVH takes a zero tolerance approach to hate crimes. All hate-related incidents, without exception, are treated as serious and will be investigated.