More than 200 anti-Semitic crimes recorded in Greater Manchester

A record number of anti-Semitic hate incidents were reported to a charity last year, research suggests.

The Community Security Trust (CST) said it received 1,805 reports of incidents in 2019 - the highest-ever number in a year so far.

Two-thirds of the incidents were recorded in Greater London (947) and Greater Manchester (223) - where two of the largest Jewish communities are in the UK, according to the report.

The charity, which documents incidents and offers support to Jewish people in the country, said the figure indicates a 7% rise on the number reported in 2018 (1,690).

A rise in incidents online is the "most obvious single factor'' explaining the overall hike, the trust said.

Some 39% of incidents occurred online (697) - a rise of 82% since last year. Most of the incidents took place on social media, according to the findings.

A report said the number of online incidents "are only indicative and are likely to understate the scale of the problem: targeted campaigns directed at individual victims often involve dozens of social media accounts and hundreds or even thousands of tweets, images or posts, but each campaign of this type is recorded by CST as a single incident''.

Around 100 incidents were reported each month of 2019.

The charity's chief executive David Delew said: "It is clear that both social media and mainstream politics are places where anti-Semitism and racism need to be driven out, if things are to improve in the future.''