Why the Rochdale Gang should have been sentenced as 'hate crime' offenders

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Walters, Mark Austin (2013) Why the Rochdale Gang should have been sentenced as 'hate crime' offenders. Criminal Law Review (2). pp. 131-144. ISSN 0011-135X

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Abstract

This article examines the case of the Rochdale Gang (a group of Asian Muslim men recently convicted of a number of sexual offences against young white girls) by analysing whether the Gang’s offences could and should have been prosecuted as “hate crimes”. The article argues that sufficient scope exists under s.28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and s.145 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for the Gang’s actions to be pursued by the authorities, not only as sexual offences, but as offences aggravated by racial and religious “hostility”. The article posits that the authorities’ denial that the Gang’s actions were partly motivated by prejudice was likely to be the result of a narrowly construed conception of hate crime. In particular, it is argued that the authorities failed to acknowledge the symbiotic relationship that existed between the perceived vulnerability of the victims and the intersecting hostilities that such vulnerabilities gave rise to. The article concludes that the police and CPS should have gathered evidence of “hostility” and adduced this for consideration by the court at sentencing.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This material was first published by Thomson Reuters in Walters, Mark Austin (2013) Why the Rochdale Gang should have been sentenced as 'hate crime' offenders. Criminal Law Review (2). pp. 131-144. and is reproduced by agreement with the Publishers
Keywords: Community relations; Decisions to prosecute; Racially aggravated offences; Religiously aggravated offences; Sexual offences
Schools and Departments: School of Law, Politics and Sociology > Law
Subjects: K Law > K Law in General. Comparative and uniform Law. Jurisprudence > K0520 Comparative law. International uniform law > K5000 Criminal law and procedure
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Depositing User: Mark Walters
Date Deposited: 28 Feb 2013 11:21
Last Modified: 13 Feb 2018 12:59
URI: http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43444

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