‘This summary does not cover every eventuality but intends to outline some of the possible criminal offences that may be committed. It should not be treated as legal advice and is not meant to be an exhaustive account of this area of law.
The police are responsible for investigating an allegation that a crime has been committed. Following investigation, the decision whether to charge a person with a criminal offence lies either with the police or the CPS.
Where a series of existing offences – including harassment and public order offences – are committed, and such an offence was motivated by hostility to race or religion, or was accompanied by hostility to race or religion proximate to the commission of the offence, a separate racially or religious aggravated offence is committed attracting a greater penalty. For further details, see the CPS-published guidance on this website. For those offences not covered but where hostility or hostile motivation towards race or religion is present, or hostility or hostile motivation towards disability, sexual orientation or transgender is present, this must be treated as an aggravating factor at sentence and stated as such in open court.’
Crown Prosecution Service, 11th January 2018
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
