Anti-Semitic hate crime rose at nearly nine times the rate of anti-Muslim offences in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, official figures show.

The number of anti-Semitic hate crimes more than doubled, from 1,543 to 3,282 in the year to March 2024, a 113 per cent increase and the highest on record.

More than eight in 10 of the hate crimes were committed after the October 7 attack, rising from 95 recorded by police in September to 577 in October alone.

Muslim hate crime also jumped but at the lower rate of 13 per cent, hitting 3,866, the highest on record for this community.

Relative to population, anti-Jewish hate crime was 12 times higher than Islamophobic hate crime, a rate of 121 per 10,000 of the population, compared to 10 per 10,000 of the Muslim population.

It meant that religious hate crime overall was at a record high, while other hate offences based on race, sexual orientation, disability or transgender all fell. The overall number of hate crimes fell by five per cent from 147,645 in the year to March 2023 to 140,561 in the year to March 2024.