The New Union pub in Southgate, Wakefield, is the venue for the district’s latest Hate Incident Reporting Centre, set up to provide victims of hate crimes - including incidents related to race, homophobia, faith, religion and disability - with an alternative location to a police station to report such incidents. There are now 38 reporting centres across the Wakefield district at venues including Citizens’ Advice Bureaux, housing offices, places of worship and community rooms.

In 2006/2007 there were around 59 hate incidents reported in Wakefield of which 17 were received through the centres.

Inspector Dave Peach, of Wakefield Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: ‘We have Hate Incident Reporting Centres in all sorts of venues including pubs and local authority offices. They aim to give the complainant control over how they would like their incident recorded and who they would like involved in the investigation.’ Specially trained staff at the centres record the relevant details of the incident and a copy is sent to police. The incident reports are then allocated to the appropriate local officers to investigate.

‘The New Union played a key role in Wakefield Pride event and management and some staff there have been trained to deal with reports of hate incidents and a private room has been allocated where people can talk confidentially.’

Sol Nicolaou, licensee of The New Union, said: ‘We are delighted to be working alongside the police to help deal with issues surrounding hate crime.’

Councillor Olivia Rowley said: ‘We’ve been working with our partners to make reporting incidents of hate crime easier and are pleased that The New Union is supporting us. The message that we are sending out is that hate crime will not be tolerated and we are working together to eradicate it.’