§ Mr. GerrardTo ask the Solicitor-General how many people have been(a) charged and (b) convicted for incitement to racial hatred in each year for which figures are available. [10284]
607W
§ The Solicitor-GeneralRecords for prosecutions for incitement of racial hatred under part III of the Public Order Act 1986 have been kept since 1988. The records relate to the year that the application for consent to prosecute was dealt with and so it is not possible to state with any certainty how many prosecutions resulted in convictions in any given year. The number of applications for consent to prosecute for each year since 1988, the number of prosecutions arising and the convictions obtained are summarised in the table.
Also, figures published in the Crown Prosecution Service Racist Incident Monitoring Annual Report 1999–2000 show that the number of racist incidents sent
Consent applications and prosecutions since 1988 under part III of the Public Order Act 1986 Year Number of Attorney-General consent applications(per defendant) Withdrawn Not granted Prosecuted 1Convicted 1988 3 — 1 2 2 1989 1 — — 1 1 1990 2 — — 2 2 1991 4 — 1 3 1 1992 5 — 2 3 2 1993 2 — — 2 2 1994 2 — — 2 2 1995 8 1 — 7 6 1996 13 1 — 12 9 1997 12 — 2 10 9 1998 2 1 — 1 1 1999 4 — — 4 3 2000 5 — — 5 22 2001 to date 7 — — 7 3— 1 Not necessarily in the same year 2Two results outstanding 3Results awaited