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Incitement to Hatred

Homophobic Hatred

In May 2008 Parliament passed important new legal protections against incitement to hatred on grounds of sexual orientation in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.

For information on the progress of this Act click here.

Racial and Religious Hatred

There are charges for offences that are motivated or aggravated by racial or religious hatred, these include assault, criminal damage, public order and harrassment, but there are no charges for offences that are motivated or aggravated by homophobic hatred:

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created a number of new racially and religiously aggravated offences
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced tougher sentences for offences motivated by hatred of the victim’s sexual orientation (this must now be taken into account by the sentencing court as an aggravating factor, in addition to race or religious hate motivation).

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2007, made it a criminal offence to use threatening words or behaviour with the intention of stirring up hatred against any group of people because of their religious beliefs or their lack of religious beliefs.