The most common hate crimes targeted against Jewish and Muslim people were public fear, alarm or distress offences.
Police-recorded religious hate crime was up by a quarter over the past year, driven by a rise in offences against Jews and Muslims since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict, official figures show.
Hate crimes targeted at Jewish people more than doubled while incidents against Muslims were up 13% on the previous 12 months, according to Home Office data.
There were a total of 10,484 religious hate crime offences recorded by police in the year to March, up 25% from 8,370 the previous year.
The department said this is the highest annual count in these offences since the hate crime collection began in the year ending March 2012.
Publishing the statistics on Thursday, the Home Office said the 25% increase “was driven by a rise in hate crimes against Jewish people and to a lesser extent Muslims and has occurred since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict”.
In the 12 months to March 2024 there were 3,282 religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people, which was more than double the 1,543 recorded the previous year.
Offences against Jewish people accounted for a third (33%) of all religious hate crimes in the last year, up from a fifth the previous year.
There were 3,866 religious hate crimes targeted against Muslims in the latest year, up 13% from 3,432 recorded the previous year.
Such crimes against Muslims accounted for almost two in five (38%) of all religious hate crimes in that period.
Offences spiked immediately after the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 2023, and the most common hate crimes targeted against people from the two faiths were public fear, alarm or distress offences.
