Reporting Hate Crimes
Have you been the victim of or a witness to a hate crime?
Hate crimes may be physical or verbal
attacks, threats or insults, and they are motivated by the victim's
race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins,
religion or creed, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or
disability.
We consider hate crimes to be any criminal action that is
perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by
prejudice and hatred.
Hate crimes often go unreported, leaving
offenders free to commit further offences. If you or someone you
know has been the victim of a hate crime, please make sure that it
gets reported. We need to know the number, type and range of
incidents taking place in the Vale so that we can direct our
resources towards dealing with them.
Please ensure that all incidents are recorded, whether they
occur on Council premises or anywhere else in the Vale of
Glamorgan, and regardless of who is involved. You may feel that
nothing will be done due to the nature of the incident, for example
you overhear racist abuse but you do not actually see the
perpetrator. In such cases please still record the incident as
offences may be taking place on a regular basis, and by reporting
it you will enable us to identify patterns of behaviour and
allocate resources accordingly.
Our hate crime incident procedure runs in conjunction with our
complaints procedure. Feedback will be given where requested on all
incidents that are recorded, except those that are reported
anonymously. Reports on incidents involving Council employees will
be investigated in accordance with our disciplinary procedure, and
may lead to disciplinary action being taken. Serious incidents will
be referred to the Police.
Please ensure that you report all incidents by filling in this
form.