A REVIEW of hate crime in the Bradford District should involve as many groups as possible, including free speech advocates - according to a committee.

And one members suggested that the review also speak to people who carry out hate crimes, even it was “uncomfortable” to do so.

Bradford Council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee will soon begin a review on “the effectiveness of Bradford Council and its partners in addressing Hate Crime across the District.”

A Hate Crime is classed as an aggressive act that targets someone based on their race, faith, sexual orientation, disability, or transgender identity.

The terms of reference for the review have been drawn up, and said its main aims are to “consider the trends and hotspots for incidences of Hate Crime across the District, analyse the preventative measures being used to stop Hate Crime from happening, examine the effectiveness of support provided to victims of Hate Crime, evaluate the outcomes of the support provided to victims of Hate Crime.”

It lists a number of organisations the review should speak to to collect evidence, including Bradford Hate Crime Alliance, West Yorkshire Police the Bradford Council for Mosques and Equity Centre Bradford.

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At a meeting of the committee on Thursday evening, members argued that the review should involve a much wider range of groups, representing different religions, sexual orientations and Trans groups.

The committee was presented with the list of groups the review should liaise with, but Cllr Simon Cooke (Cons, Bingley Rural) said: “I don’t see all groups represented on this list.

“We have the Council of Mosques but we should have other religious groups. We need representatives of women’s groups and people from the LGBT community. This should not just be limited to Islam.”

Councillor David Green (Lab, Wibsey) said: “Broadening this list out is important.

“I think on some level it is important to speak to the perpetrators of these crimes, to try and get some kind of understanding of where this hate comes from and why this is happening.

“It might be uncomfortable, but it is something we should do.”

Cllr Cooke, who has regularly raised concerns about the conflict between the need to allow free speech and the need to protect different groups, added: “It should reflect the concerns of free speech advocates too - we should put these concerns on the table too.”

Once the review is complete, the group will release a report on the prevalence of Hate Crime in Bradford and make a series of recommendations on how the Council and its partners can deal with it.