NORTH Yorkshire has recorded an alarming 64 per cent increase in the number

of people charged with a race hate crime.

Crimes include racially-aggravated assault, criminal damage and yobs

hurling racist abuse in the street.

Crown Prosecution Service figures released today show that 28 people were

charged with a race hate crime last year, compared to only 17 the previous year.

The leap compared with an increase of 20 per cent across England and Wales,

from 3,105 cases to 3,728.

The statistics also raise a question mark over North Yorkshire police's

ability to spot racist crimes.

The force correctly identified racist motives in 22 - or 79 per cent - of cases. But in the remaining six cases, the charges had to be uprated by the

CPS. The national average identified by the police was 89 per cent.

Police forces have been given special training in identifying race hate crime, following the ground-breaking inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Anne Collins, spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "We want to see more of these incidents identified as racist by the police. There have been improvements year-on-year, but if the police don't pick it up as racially-motivated, then we have to flag it up after receiving the files."

Furthermore, North Yorkshire Police failed to supply a copy of the racist

incident report to speed up the prosecution process in 96 per cent of cases.

Nationally, forces provided the special reports in 18 per cent of cases, but many forces provided a report in more than 40 per cent of cases. Ms Collins said: "It means we don't have all the details to assess the case, so we have to make calls to the police to get that information."

Of the 28 people charged with a race hate crime in North Yorkshire last year, 22 were prosecuted, with the other six cases dropped.

Updated: 10:32 Monday, March 17, 2003