Tyneside hate crime reports rise as councillor fears 'social media is absolutely out of hand'

Hate crime reports across South Tyneside are climbing, fresh police statistics shared with local councillors have revealed. The data was examined during a recent gathering (Nov 4, 2025) of South Tyneside Council's Our Place Scrutiny Committee as part of a briefing on "public protection and crime and disorder." Police statistics presented during the session showed that South Tyneside logged 334 hate crimes over the past 12 months, representing a 2.4 per cent jump from the previous year's figure of 326. The data covered a "rolling 12 months" period, with officials noting the pattern mirrors national trends, where the UK experienced a two per cent surge to 137,550 hate crimes, the council confirmed. According to Northumbria Police's website, hate crime typically falls under three primary categories: "physical assault, verbal abuse and incitement to hatred", with incitement offences potentially encompassing "words, pictures, videos, music, and includes information posted on websites." Worries regarding the local spike in hate crime were previously highlighted during September's Riverside Community Area Forum (CAF) session, which encompasses South Tyneside's Beacon and Bents, West Park, Simonside and Rekendyke and Westoe wards. This featured statistics showing 22 hate crimes during an eight-week stretch, up from nine hate crimes documented in the preceding eight weeks, with one councillor branding the pattern as "distressing and yet unsurprising." Borough-wide hate crime statistics were shared with the Our Place Scrutiny Committee at South Shields Town Hall on November 4, 2025, forming part of a broader crime data presentation featuring Aelfwynn Sampson, Northumbria Police's chief superintendent for South Tyneside. The senior officer explained that the 2.4 per cent rise in hate crime reports during the past 12 months "tracks a national trend" and whilst the figures weren't broken down by particular categories of hate crime, councillors heard that the area where police had documented the "most increase" was "race-related hate". "Just for assurance for members and councillors, every single hate crime that gets reported is subject to scrutiny through our daily management meeting and the context of the community engagement team," Chief Superintendent Sampson explained. "We monitor every single hate-related incident as well just to ensure that we have got the wrap-around support in place for those experiencing hate crime linked to all protected characteristics across the borough. "What we're seeing here does represent an increase but again we're working really hard around having those safe reporting centres and more outreach within the communities to give people confidence to report if they're experiencing hate crime to bring it to our attention, or the local authority's attention, for us to work together to improve that community cohesion, education and understanding." Councillors were also told that officers work closely with South Tyneside Council to combat hate crime through various joint initiatives, including programmes with schools. Councillor Rachael Taylor recognised that hate crime definitions encompass numerous protected characteristics but questioned the police chief about any potential "correlation" between rising hate crime and flags. Chief Superintendent Sampson explained that officers couldn't attribute the increase to "one single thing" but pointed to several contributing factors, including "community, geopolitical, environmental, local and national political change and unrest", alongside "recent protest activity across the UK". The senior officer noted that South Tyneside's hate crime statistics reflected national trends and, responding to Cllr Taylor's inquiry about flags, stated she couldn't confirm a "direct correlation." Additional council data presented during the same meeting revealed there had been 12 hate crime reports made to South Tyneside Council throughout 2024/25 and six reports recorded between April 2025 and September 2025. James Maughan, the council's senior public protection manager, explained that the authority participates in partnership meetings and "community engagement events", mosque visits with partners, educational work through the "safer schools" programme and broader monitoring of "community cohesion/tension". "While internally we haven't seen an increase in reporting of hate crime, in what we do to tackle that we're looking at community tensions across the borough and working with partners to address that," he added. Councillor Alison Strike, chair of the Our Place Scrutiny Committee, described the hate crime statistics as "worrying" and highlighted the broader influence of social media. "It's whipped up into a frenzy about different things on social media and there's an awful lot of people guilty of sharing this kind of stuff as well which I think they should be ashamed of, they should really look at things in perspective," Cllr Strike added. "Social media is absolutely out of hand as far as I can see and causes so many problems for residents and individuals, especially if you're a victim of hate crime." Our ChronicleLive Daily newsletter is free. You can sign up to receive it here . It will keep you up to date with all the latest breaking news and top stories from the North East.