RELIGIOUS hate crime incidents in Lancashire reported to the police have more than doubled in two years.

New Home Office figures revealing the 121 per cent increase have alarmed the county’s Church of England and Muslim leaders.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Julian Henderson, and Abdul Hamid Qureshi, chief executive of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, both described the trend as ‘worrying’.

Between April 2017 and March 2018, 150 incidents were recorded by Lancashire Police.

This was up from 68 in the previous 12 months.

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

The Home Office analysis explains there were spikes in Islamophobic hate crime after recent terrorist atrocities which included the Westminster and Manchester Arena attacks.

It also records a rise in offences motivated by religious prejudice after the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The Bishop said: “Hate crime in any form is to be condemned and these latest figures released today show a worrying trend.

“Tolerance of our religious differences, which is not the same as agreement, is important.

“There is a corporate and individual responsibly to try and eradicate this unacceptable stain on society.

“Our church schools, especially those with more 90 per cent of pupils from faiths other than Christian, lead in helping to achieve this by teaching understanding of other religions as part of our religious education provision.”

Mr Qureshi said: “This is a worrying trend.

“We have seen an increase in incidents of Islamophobia reported to us.

“Our political leaders need to be careful in the language they use.

“Loose comments result in people saying hateful things about Muslims.

“If the Council of Mosques comes across Muslims in Lancashire being lured into extremism and religious hatred, we confront it and rebut it.

“We work very closely with other faiths, especially the Diocese of Blackburn, to promote understanding.

“The people of Lancashire are very tolerant and peaceful but we are finding more cases of anti-Muslim prejudice.”

A police spokesman said: “Hate incidents and crimes of any kind can have a devastating effect on the victim, their families and communities.

“They are frightening and upsetting but, by reporting any incident or crime, you can get the help and support you need and prevent it from happening to other people. The only way we can stamp out this sort of behaviour is if we know about it and we need the public’s help to achieve this.

“There is no place for hate in Lancashire.”

Anti-Semitism was the second most common type of religious hate crime nationally.

In Lancashire, the total number of recorded hate crime incidents has more than doubled over the last five years, partly because of improvements in the way crimes are recorded.

The majority of hate crimes reported to Lancashire Police were racist incidents which increased by 91 per cent compared with the previous year, with 1,561 cases recorded by officers in 2017-18.

The number of incidents where disability was a motivating factor, rose from 96 to 173