In 2018, the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice @ SHU began a project that reviewed existing support for victims of hate crimes and incidents in South Yorkshire. At the beginning of the project, South Yorkshire was experiencing unprecedented levels of protest, violence and harassment from Far Right groups who, in turn, were responding to the revelations of organised child sexual exploitation in Rotherham and other surrounding areas. The publication of the Jay Report in 2014 brought to light the systematic exploitation of young girls by mainly Muslim men in Rotherham and the failure of local authorities to investigate these crimes. The abuse and failure to investigate by local statutory agencies led to a prolonged period of Far Right protest in Rotherham and associated rises in hate crime, extremism and terrorism. Local attempts to address these issues were not helped by a UK government which was pursuing a ‘hostile environment‘ policy against all people in the UK who did not have the automatic right to remain the country.

The following piece of student work captures what this hostile environment looked like, the hate crime it produced, and what has been done in South Yorkshire to address this. MA Applied Human Rights students Kyle Hudson is now a Prevent Officer for Derby City Council and is about to start his PhD at the University of Leeds which reviews the impact of the Prevent policy upon communities. During his time at SHU, Kyle looked at the impact of hate crime in Rotherham and across South Yorkshire and reviewed the responses from the police to these challenges as well as a national NGO, Tell MAMA, which supports victims of anti-Muslim hate. You can read our recent publication on this topic here. The publication is part of a twenty year review of the impact of the 1999 MacPherson Report.