Hate crimes against Jews are being recorded as “antisemitic” by the Crown Prosecution Service for the first time.
The long called for change was made by the CPS in May but has only now come to light.
Until May, prosecutors categorised crimes against Jews and Muslims broadly under racial and religious hatred.
It meant that it was not possible to see how many people had been charged or prosecuted specifically for a crime relating to antisemitic or anti-Muslim hate.
Similarly, hate crimes against Muslims are now being recorded separately as anti-Muslim for the first time as well.
Jewish groups welcomed the change.
A spokesman for The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) said: “We have long called for the CPS to collect this data. Many were shocked to discover that prosecutions of antisemitic offences and their outcomes were not being separately recorded or assessed.
"Without that most basic information, we cannot understand the full scale of the problem or assess how effectively it is being tackled. It is right for the CPS to close this gap.”
Former attorney general Sir Michael Ellis, who commented in February on the CPS failing to list Jew-hate crimes as ‘antisemitic’ at a JC talk, has welcomed the decision.
He told the JC: “Due to the outcry about unprecedented levels of antisemitic crime against British Jews, the CPS has at last started to record specifically these offences. That is to be welcomed.
“It is clear that the number of hate crimes Jews are subjected to is disproportionate. Collecting this data is a vital tool for the CPS to recognise where it is failing.”
In February, in conversation with JC’s political editor Lorin Bell-Cross, Ellis said: “We don't know how they [the CPS] are doing because they don't collect the statistics.”
Also at the talk in February was David Toube, general counsel for the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), who said: “It is the most flabbergasting thing that the CPS has no way of telling how well it is doing in prosecuting [antisemitic crimes] because it's [only] got a category called ‘religious hate crime’ on the computer."
In the first six months of this year, there were 1,926 antisemitic hate incidents in the UK, as reported by the Community Security Trust (CST).
A CPS spokesman told the JC: “There is no place for hate in our society, and we will do everything we can to prosecute those responsible.
“We are seeing the highest levels of hate crime we’ve ever recorded. That’s why we have introduced new flags on our system to help us track our performance and increase transparency on antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes.
“We are determined to speed up decisions on hate crime cases and get defendants in court sooner, whilst at the same time maintaining the quality of our decision-making. To this end, we have published new guidance.”
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