New Home Office statistics that suggest hate crimes against transgender people have increased by 11 per cent have been criticised by Peter Bleksley.
The former Met Police detective said new figures suggesting crimes motivated by religious and transgender hate have risen are “utterly worthless”.
Despite the surge, the overall number of hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales has fallen year-on-year for the first time in a decade.
A total of 145,214 offences were recorded in the two nations in the year ending March 2023, down 5% from 153,536 in the previous 12 months, the Home Office said.
Peter Bleksley suggested new Home Office statistics are 'worthless'
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Speaking on GB News, Bleksley was quick to “pour cold water” over the story.
“As the Home Office admits, the statistics are not reliable”, he said.
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“I would go a step further and say they are utterly worthless.
“Some of the reasons is, Devon and Cornwall isn’t included as they are rolling out a new IT system.
“We know some police forces are in a state of confusion as to what a hate crime is or isn’t. The one area in which they can be regarded as reliable is it gives you an indication of how much the police are doing in terms of investigating these cases.
“In pretty much every other regard, these statistics are fit for the bin.”
Peter Bleksley has questioned how hate crimes are recorded
GB News / PAAs police forces struggle to define hate crimes, GB News’ Tom Harwood questioned Bleksley as to how they can be quantified, and what the difference is between them and a ‘non-crime hate incident’.
Bleksley told Harwood that he is “quickly losing the will to live” on the matter.
“It is utterly catastrophic. The police shouldn’t be getting these involved in something so complicated.
“It is their terminology and it is utterly ludicrous. There is a vast amount of unreported crime that people don’t go to the police with.
“Every day people tell me they were subject of a crime but they did not bother to report it as they didn’t think they would get an investigation.
“This is why crime statistics are really unreliable.”
According to the figures, religious hate crimes were up by nine per cent to 9,387 offences, while transgender hate crimes increased to 11 per cent, to 4,732 offences.
Responding to the figures, LGBTQ+ group Stonewall criticised political leaders for not having acted “seriously or quickly enough” against hate crime, adding that “many of them are filling the public domain with toxic language that dehumanises LGBTQ+ people”.
In its accompanying notes with the latest statistics published on Thursday, the Home Office said: “Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences, or more awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes.”
This week’s Conservative Party conference focused on transgender issues, with Health Secretary Steve Barclay proposing a ban on trans women from female NHS wards.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman also hit out at the “highly controversial” idea of gender ideology.