Hate crimes against Jewish and Muslim Londoners have surged in the 12 days since the murderous Hamas assault on Israel, a Crown Prosecution Service chief said today.
Lionel Idan, the chief crown prosecutor for London South, said community leaders had “never seen anything like” the explosion in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
He told the Standard: “An incident thousands of miles away can have this ripple effect. Sadly, we see hate crime across the strands, particularly with the backdrop at the moment in the Middle East. Anything from paint being daubed on doorways, right through to assaults.
“One of the saddest aspects for me is the impact on children. We have stories of people having to change their behaviours, not wearing their school blazers and having to stay at home.
“That sense of fear, isolation and anxiety, it’s very real. We talk about the wider impact of hate crime, we are seeing that unfold at this time. My heart really goes out to everyone.” Mr Idan met Dave Rich of the Jewish Community Security Trust (CST), Iman Atta from anti-Muslim abuse monitoring group Tell Mama, plus 150 police chiefs and lawyers to discuss the crisis at the CPS’s headquarters in London.
The CST has recorded at least 457 anti-Semitic incidents, 249 of them in London, after Hamas militants launched their attack, an eight-fold increase on the 55 recorded over the same period last year.
The group say this is the highest ever 12-day total since it started recording incidents in 1984.
Among examples, two Jewish girls’ schools in north London were vandalised with red paint by hooded figures caught on CCTV, the loud playing of German military music and worshippers intimidated outside synagogues.
Tell Mama reported 200 acts of Islamophobia between October 7 and 16 — a five-fold surge over the same period in 2022.
Both groups called on Mr Idan to increase the number of racists convicted.
Latest CPS figures show 302 people were found guilty of a religious hate crime in the past 12 months, a slight increase on the 294 in both 2022 and 2021.
Mr Idan said such offences “cut to the heart of individuals and communities”, adding: “For those of us who are passionate about how we live and learn as a society, they really tear at the fabric of our harmony together.
“The community as a whole wants to see action, prosecutions and arrests.
“We talked [with CST and Tell Mama] about how we can build public confidence, trust and encourage more people to come forward to report.”
Fifteen people were arrested and three charged after a pro-Palestinian rally in central London on Saturday.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman urged senior police officers to use the “full force of the law” against demonstrations of support for Hamas. She suggested waving a Palestinian flag “may not be legitimate” on British streets.
Asked if parading with a flag of Palestine could potentially be illegal, Mr Idan did not mention Ms Braverman but said it is “very dangerous or unhelpful to speculate” on different public order scenarios.
He added: “You just never know what might cross the line into a crime. The right to protest, and committing a hate crime, is a very fine line and we have to make sure we prosecute the right person for the right offence.”
However, campaigners were angered last year by the decision to drop charges against four men accused of stirring up racial hatred by shouting anti-Semitic abuse and flying Palestinian flags from a convoy of cars in St John’s Wood in May 2021.
Mr Idan said the CPS is “not perfect” and in cases “where genuinely the evidence is simply not there”, prosecutors should treat victims with empathy and explain decisions.
Separately, London’s gay and transgender communities have also come under attack in the past year.
Most seriously two men, in their 20s and 30s, were stabbed in what police called a “horrific and unprovoked” homophobic crime outside the Two Brewers in Clapham High Street on August 13. A 19-year-old man arrested in South Norwood has been bailed until December.
Mr Idan held a summit with the capital’s LGBT community during Pride month in June and heard “powerful” testimonies from survivors.
He admitted being surprised to hear some suffered appalling abuse in place that would be considered safe such as gyms and football stadiums.
Abusers come “from all walks of life”, he told the Standard and the CPS has prosecuted middle-class professionals and police officers.
“One thing I’ve learnt is hate does not discriminate,” he said. “If someone has hatred in their heart it matters not who they are.
“The reasons are complex but it is not something which starts in adulthood.
“Behaviours in the playground that might seem a bit of fun, light-hearted or banter escalate into actual hate crimes if that is allowed to continue.”
Several anonymous racists and homophobes have been unmasked and convicted of sending offensive messages on X, formerly Twitter, to high-profile targets including footballers.
Mr Idan remains saddened over the “normalisation” of such behaviour online with many victims refusing to come forward.
“They say, ‘That’s what I get all the time’. It’s far from normal - it’s a crime,” he comments. “I hope that by raising awareness we can break that cycle.
“Please report it. You never know which perpetrator is doing it to 10 people or more.”
Mr Idan, the first black male chief crown prosecutor in CPS history, grew up in Ghana where his father lectured in art and literature.
He had no concept of racism until he encountered it when his family arrived in England in the late Seventies.
Mr Idan went to a “good school” in St Albans where he was embraced. But as a young adult, he says, he started to experience and see more. Mr Idan is grateful not to have grown up in an age of social media where people can be racially abused “whilst safely tucked up in beds”.
Called to the independent Bar in 1996, he joined the CPS as a specialist domestic abuse and rape prosecutor in 2005.
Internally, Mr Idan is tackling perceived CPS bias. Its own study found black and ethnic minority suspects are significantly more likely to be charged for a comparable offence than white British defendants. The use of drill music lyrics in bad character applications during criminals trials is also under scrutiny.
Responding to a Standard exclusive last month about more than 2,000 criminal trials being aborted this year because of broken buildings and missing barristers and judges, Mr Idan said it was paramount “every single minute we have in court is maximised”.
London’s courts are dealing with almost a quarter of the record 64,709 in the justice system backlog with thousands of rape and sex crimes waiting to be heard.
In 2012, Mr Idan led the team that helped convict two of black student Stephen Lawrence’s racist killers.
Commenting on the case, he said the CPS would “move heaven and earth” to go after the final three or four gang members who stabbed Stephen, 18, at a bus stop in Eltham on April 22, 1993.
Allowing Stephen’s murder to remain only partially solved “is not my thing at all”, Mr Idan insisted, adding: “It’s probably one of the most high profile hate crimes we’ve ever had and led to so much change.
“Nobody could be anything but moved by Stephen’s story. It is right that we try and do everything to keep that legacy alive, whether it’s bringing more offenders of hate crime to justice or we make the right decisions at the right time so bereaved parents have some closure.”
