Dyfed-Powys Police is having to deal with more hate crime, which is mostly racist incidents, figures show.

The latest Home Office data shows that between April 2017 and March 2018, 223 cases were reported to police, up from 168 the year before.

And the vast majority of those, 171 in total, were racist abuse or attacks.

Additionally there were nine cases of religious hate crime.

Across England and Wales the number of religious hate crimes reported increased by 40 per cent over the last year.

While the police force figures do not break down crimes by religion, across England and Wales more than half of the hate crime reported was against Muslims.

The Home Office report explains there were spikes in Islamophobic hate crime after recent terrorist attacks. The time period includes the Manchester Arena terror attack and the London Bridge attack.

In Dyfed-Powys, the total number of recorded hate crime incidents has more than doubled over the last five years.

This is partly because of improvements in the way crimes are recorded but there have been spikes after events such as the Brexit referendum and the terrorist attacks.

Hate crimes and incidents are defined as those perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a personal characteristic.

And there were 33 incidents of homophobic hate crime reported to Dyfed-Powys Police in 2017-18.

There were 33 incidents where gay, lesbian or bisexual people were abused or attacked due to their identity, slightly falling from 35 in 2016-17.

The Home Office said it believes these rises are due to improved reporting, and do not necessarily genuine increases in hate crime.

The figures show that over the same period there were seven incidents of transgender hate crime reported to Dyfed-Powys Police.

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