This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Incidents of racism in the wake of the EU referendum result have increased dramatically, according to the latest figures.

Complaints filed to police online hate-crime reporting site True Vision have increased fivefold since last Thursday, the National Police Chiefs Council said, with 331 hate crime incidents reported to the site compared with a weekly average of 63.

The vote for Brexit has been blamed for the spate of racist attacks and incidents across the country over the past week, including dozens of Islamophobic leaflets put through doors in Birmingham and reports that far-right leaflets were distributed in parts of West Yorkshire.

A police inquiry was launched in Manchester when vulnerable pensioners were forced to evacuate a day centre after receiving threats of “a backlash against the black community”.

In the West Midlands, a BBC radio presenter was racially abused in the street.

Sara Thornton, head of the NPCC, said: “The national community tensions team has also analysed reports from forces, which today show an increase in community tension directed at the migrant community since the referendum.



“In a number of forces, migrants are reporting verbal abuse, negative social media commentary including xenophobic language, anti-migrant leafleting and, in very limited numbers, physical assaults. All of these incidents are under active investigation.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sara Thornton, head of the National Police Chiefs Council. Photograph: PA

A senior Church of England official warned that the rise in hate crimes since the EU referendum could lead to fascism.

Arun Arora, the church’s director of communications and an ordained priest, said the UK faced a choice about what kind of country it wanted to be.

In his sermon at the consecration this week of two female bishops, Arora said: “The rise in hate crimes over recent days has echoes. They remind of how the seeds of fascism, once sown and left to flourish, can grow into a poison fruit, leading to a society which scapegoats, persecutes and dehumanises.”

In Manchester, more than 20 elderly people, some using wheelchairs, had to flee the Hulme-based African Caribbean Care Group after a threatening phone call on Wednesday afternoon.

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Manager Dorothy Evans, who took the call, said she was stunned to receive the anonymous call telling her that people were going to get “fucked up”.

Evans said: “It happened about lunch time, he was blaming older black people for their behaviour and saying that people were going to get hurt because of it. It was very scary – we support people in the community regardless of race, people who are blind, disabled, vulnerable – and worried that there was a risk to those in the centre, so we shut.”

In the West Midlands, police have launched two separate investigations after leaflets were put through doors in Aston, Birmingham, and BBC Coventry and Warwickshire breakfast show host Trish Adudu was abused in the street by a passing cyclist.

Adudu said she was subjected to the racist abuse on Wednesday morning in Coventry after she saw a man of Asian appearance being told to “go home”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest BBC Coventry and Warwickshire radio presenter Trish Adudu. Photograph: Richard Stonehouse/BBC/PA

She said: “This type of vile abuse needs to stop and we need to work together to try and get rid of it.

“If the guy on the bike could be so vile in such a short period of time, then what else could he go on to do? Who’s next? Someone is going to get hurt.”

In Aston, the MP Shabana Mahmood contacted the same force after dozens of Islamophobic leaflets were put through doors.

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Mahmood said she was contacted by concerned residents after the flyers, which she described as “frightening”, were posted on Monday. Police are now looking at CCTV footage in a bid to find out who was responsible.

Mahmood, the Labour MP for Ladywood, said: “They are vile and a disgusting piece of literature designed to frighten the people in my constituency and cause fear and create division in our society.”

That same night, a halal butcher in Pleck, Walsall, was firebombed – but police are saying that they are keeping an open mind over the motive.

In York, police urged a Swedish mother to come forward after receiving reports that she was racially abused in the street while with her two young children.

Although the incident has not been officially reported to the police, a friend of the woman told The Press newspaper that she was abused in the Fulford area of the city on Saturday.

He said: “On a warm summer Saturday in Fulford, a young mother with her two children was told to ‘**** off back to your own country’.”

The man told the paper he respected the result of the EU referendum, but he added: “It is not only sad, but deplorable, that a criminal minority feel that they have been emboldened by the result to abuse others with brainless, racist bile that has no place in any civilised community.”

St Adam Thomson, of North Yorkshire police, said: “I am appealing to the woman who was abused to please contact us and report what happened. This type of crime will not be tolerated in the city of York or anywhere else in our county and anyone who behaves in such a way will face the full force of the law.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Imam Qari Asim and Makkah mosque in Leeds. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

In Leeds, a prominent imam said it was “upsetting and disturbing” that leave campaign leaders had been slow to condemn xenophobic and racially motivated incidents across the UK.

Qari Asim, the senior imam at the Makkah mosque in Leeds, said anti-Muslim hate monitoring group Tell Mama reported a 326% increase in incidents against Muslims in 2015, and warned that Brexit could make it worse.

“What has been most upsetting and disturbing is that there have been no immediate statements from leave campaign leaders condemning such xenophobic and racially motivated incidents.”

He added: “There is no doubt that the repercussions of this historic vote will be felt for many years, and potentially decades, to come. But this decision of over 17 million people must be respected and we must remain positive.

“Now is not the time for fallouts. Unity, stability, reconciliation and tackling of inequality and bigotry must be our priorities post-Brexit.”