North Yorkshire Police defends response to reports of racial hate crime
A Scarborough business owner says officers need more training to better support victims
A North Yorkshire woman says she's "shocked and disappointed" by the police response after she was the victim of racist abuse.
Maya Mihoc runs Big Maya's Jerk she says trolls sent her messages saying her Caribbean restaurant wasn't welcome in Scarborough.
They also made fake bookings and her front window has been smashed.
But Maya says when she reported it certain police officers weren't interested and made assumptions based on her race: "I genuinely think, every place has its bad apples but I think it's a question of them really needing more education in terms of how to deal with racial cases in general."
She tells us about when she reported the block bookings to a call handler: "As soon as she found out I as black her whole entire demeanour changed, and she basically refused to help and said they weren't going to pursue the case."
"I think after all this experience the most positive thing I got was a letter saying 'hate crime doesn't have a place here' through the post and it was like, how ironic? When a couple of your officers are openly racist."
Maya says the abuse and the police response have taken a toll on her mental health: "I know I'm a good person and I know I'm doing my best and I'm serving my community to the best of my abilities and that's all that matters and everything else, eventually I will overcome it but it's pretty hard."
"You feel like you are at war all the time and I'm a happy go lucky type of girl and I want to have a laugh and have a bit of fun and it's like I've been put in a circumstance where I feel like I continuously have to avoid being amongst people."
In a statement North Yorkshire police say: 'On 03 January 2024 North Yorkshire Police received a report of criminal damage at a commercial premises on Hoxton Road in Scarborough.
We sent officers to speak with the business owner who believes that they were targeted due to their race.
As part of the investigation into the incident we carried out an extensive CCTV trawl in the area and issued a media appeal to ask the public to come forward with information.
Unfortunately no further information came to light to progress the investigation.
We are keen to hear from anyone who has any information about this incident which will help our investigation. If you can help, please call North Yorkshire Police on 101 and speak to our Force Control Room quoting reference number 12240001497.
As with all potential hate crimes, the incident was referred to the Force’s Hate Crime Coordinator for a comprehensive review.
North Yorkshire Police believes that targeting people because of who they are is completely unacceptable. If you have been a victim of hate crime, please do not suffer in silence, there are several ways that this can be reported, even if you do not want to speak to the police directly